


Lost in Translation

by Ray_Writes



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2018-12-15 22:27:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 75,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11815440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ray_Writes/pseuds/Ray_Writes
Summary: In a universe where people are born with the name of the person destined for them displayed on their skin, intergalactic soulmates can be rather difficult to navigate.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is an idea I'd been toying with and then I saw a post on tumblr today where the OP claimed they couldn't "understand" why people shipped these two and I saw red so I wanted to post something for you all to read since I was away for about a week. Already a good portion of the way through the next chapter so you shouldn't have to worry too much about update speed. Any canon dialogue you recognize is not mine. Title is more based on the idiom rather than the film. Anyway I hope you enjoy this take on a well-known trope and let me know what you think!

The Time Lords told their young about soulmate markings the same way they told their young about everything else. Dispassionately, matter-of-factly, and with a sense that it was best not to dwell on something so base and trivial.

A quirk of biology, thought to be a leftover trait from the time of the Carrionites. Words, after all, had been their power, though there was certainly strength behind High Gallifreyan and even Circular Gallifreyan texts.

Neither a quirk of biology nor any written form of Gallifreyan could explain Theta Sigma’s marking, however.

“There are clearly four distinct symbols, though one repeats, you see?” He twisted in place to be able to look back at Koschei while also pushing the collar of his robe to the side. It wasn’t proper protocol to show someone else your marking, but children broke the rule all the time, even at the Academy.

“And they’ve always looked like that?”

“Of course they have. They’d be even more remarkable if they’d changed, I daresay.”

“Do you like to think they make you special?” Koschei drawled.

Theta flushed. “Well, no. Not  _ special _ necessarily. Merely different.”

“You needn’t any help with being different.” He couldn’t very well disagree with his friend on that count.

Theta did protest, however, as Koschei stood and walked across the room. “Aren’t you going to show me yours?”

“Why should I?” His friend asked loftily. “They’re pointless to us Time Lords. I’m sure we’ll have evolved past them in a matter of generations. Who knows, maybe your nonsense symbols are the first sign.”

Years later, they were both deeply involved in their studies, and anything else hardly bore thinking about. At least, that had been the impression Theta was working under, only for Koschei to march into the room with no preamble one day while he was in the middle of testing his newest invention.

“I’ve found your symbols.”

“My what?”

“Your soulmate marking symbols,” he enunciated as though he thought Theta was being particularly thick today. Koschei set a thick tome down on his workbench. “They’re from a primitive language originating on the planet Sol Three. We’re going to be covering it along with several others next term.”

Theta was hardly concerned with the subject of next term’s classes, however. “And this language has a word with all of those symbols? In the exact order?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what does it mean? Out with it!” He urged.

Koschei rolled his eyes. “It simply means ‘lady’, silly. How very foolish of you. Not only could you not manage a soulmate marking in the proper language, you couldn’t even manage a name.”

Theta’s face felt very hot and he wished he wasn’t at the Academy at all, but back at the barn.

Koschei hardly seemed to notice, instead looking very pleased with himself for figuring out the mystery. That was true Time Lord arrogance, always the need to be clever.

“And what, may I ask, were you doing looking for my symbols, hm?” Theta demanded, if only to wipe the smirk off his face. “Thought you said they were nonsense.”

“Well — they are. I wasn’t looking for  _ them _ . I was reading ahead in the course material. Obviously.” Koschei scoffed, but it didn’t sound as convincing as his usual.

“Obviously,” said Theta anyway. “Well then, it hardly bares discussing, does it?”

They never brought it up, nor did Theta Sigma bring it up to another person, ever again.

—-

To humanity, soulmate marks were a little slice of fairy tale in an ordinary, mundane world. Parents cooed over the name their baby was gifted at birth, perhaps picked a birthname they thought might sound nice together, then got caught up in the swirl of nappy changings, first steps, first words, teething, and so on. When the child was old enough to understand, that was when they were told about the mark — though that age varied depending on the parents, of course.

But Donna Noble had always understood. She wasn’t like other babies who were given a gift at birth. Donna Noble was given a curse.

The interlocking circles that spanned almost the expanse of her back were just another oddity, as if it wasn’t bad enough being ginger and never skinny, not even during her growth spurt. Dad and Gramps always had a good chortle over how mum had fainted straightaway at the sight of her mark.

“What is it, some kind of graffiti? My daughter’s got some street tag on her back, oh  _ God _ ,” was her refrain every time she glimpsed it. Donna learned to wear cardis and jackets and shawls, even to the pool.

“Now, now, Sylvia, I’m sure that’s not it,” her dad responded in a well-worn way every time, somehow striking the balance between exasperated and fond. Donna wouldn’t have believed in soulmates at all if she didn’t watch her parents somehow stay in love despite, well,  _ everything _ .

Her dad was real good about the whole mark thing, really. “Do you want it removed, love?” He asked her one night near the end of primary school, rubbing the spot in soothing circles as Donna cried into her pillow. “People get that done, these days.”

“Would it hurt?” She asked in a small voice, lifting her face slightly to be understood.

“Well, I imagine it would a little. But we’d be right there, your mum and I, and your grandfather.”

Donna thought for a long moment. She imagined it would hurt an awful  _ lot _ , and there was the question of money. Everyone at school already knew about it anyway, thanks to the girls who snickered behind her back in the locker rooms. There’d be no point now.

“They’re jealous,” her Gramps insisted, sitting in his chair on the hill. “You’ve got something they haven’t, sweetheart, and that makes you special.”

“But I don’t want it,” she replied, her knees drawn up to her chest as she sat on the grass beside him.

He chuckled, placing an arm around her shoulders. “Well, no no one asks for what they’re given. It’s their choice whether to make the most of it or not. You’ll see, love. One day, I’m sure of it. You’ll find your — well, whoever he is.” 

Why was  _ she _ the one who had to have it all muffed up? Oh sure, Susie from maths had a  _ Tom _ ; he’d be hard to find, but at least it was something. Some Tom out there in the world who could share everything with Susie if they ever met. Be her closest friend, her support, the one person who understood her completely. Donna didn’t even have the luxury of pretending.

There were some, people said, who weren’t born with anyone’s name marked upon their skin. They were said to be happy, that they never felt a lack. Sometimes Donna wished that she were like that; other times, the thought occurred to her that someone like her would never be good enough on their own going nowhere as she was, and imagining being alone in the universe her whole life terrified her. But she was as good as, wasn’t she?

Stupid circles. It wasn’t Chinese characters, or Japanese, or Korean; it wasn’t Arabic; it wasn’t even bloody hieroglyphics!

—-

When the Doctor first married, his wife trailed curious fingers over the old symbols but never asked. They had that understanding about each other. It was comfortable, it was easy. They were good to each other, and for each other, so his old teachers often remarked.

It was not the life he dreamt of, either when he closed his eyes or when he gazed up at the orange sky from his place lying on the red grass — his little Arkytior with him now, not Koschei — but he could not find it in himself to regret it. Not when he knew a hand in his was the only abatement to his loneliness, his sense of not belonging on Gallifrey, he was likely to ever receive.

And then he and Arkytior, now Susan —  _ Rose _ , he had told her, was the proper translation of her name, but she had been adamant in choosing her own, the stubborn child — were no longer on Gallifrey, instead lost amongst the stars in a rickety Type 40 TARDIS he barely knew what to do with.

It was not until his travels took him to Earth with increasing regularity that he realized the symbols —  _ D o n n a  _ — were not just a word. They had also been adopted as a name. Humans named their infants  _ lady _ sometimes. How curious.

Curiouser still, was the idea that he had been given the name of a human to wear. Him, a Time Lord, who lived for centuries and did perhaps grow old but  _ changed _ rather than died. He had children and grandchildren, yet was not even middle-aged! What if he should meet this Donna tomorrow? How much of his life could he reasonably expect her to be a part of? A century? A handful of decades? It not only seemed foolish, it seemed cruel.

The Doctor did not seek out any of these Donnas, not like he might have in his true youth. Not when Susan left with her David — he hadn’t had the heart to check her marking; he did not wish to know what had her so taken with the human — not when Ian and Barbara left, not when he continued to travel and meet new humans with all variety of names that hurt him badly enough when they all in turn took their leave of him.

Not even after the Time War, when he was left with nothing. Not a people, not a family, not an other half. The temptation beckoned, but what other person could wish to share themselves with a monster like him now?

Instead, he found a new Rose. Different in many aspects to his precious granddaughter, but still he was unaccountably fond of the pink and yellow human who brought some of the old joy of traveling the stars back to his weary eyes. Despite some hiccups, such as accidentally taking her from her home for an entire year, she seemed to like him a great deal as well.

The Doctor did not realize just how much, unfortunately, until he lost her too.

“Wait,” Rose said, clearly struggling not to break down on her end of the connection he had created to say a proper goodbye to her on the parallel world. “Wait, before you- before you’re gone, I need to know. Is it you?”

“Is what me?”

“The name I’ve got. Is it yours?” To his dismay she turned around, unzipping her jacket with the clear intent of showing him her mark. “Yours is mine, isn’t it? I love you.”

“Oh, Rose Tyler,” he sighed, his hearts sinking. She flickered, then faded from view as the connection weakened and then died, not before he glimpsed markings in a twenty-six character alphabet clear as day.

What had he done? All that time, had he led her to believe — oh no. No wonder Jackie and Mickey had often viewed him so poorly.

This soulmate business truly was horrid and pointless, his old friend had been right all along. The Doctor resolved then and there to forget the entire thing. Not just forget, he would actively ignore and work against it. He could tattoo over the name like the Corsair used to do, make sure every companion knew corresponding soulmate markings between species was an impossibility — he’d told worse lies. Do everything in his power to halt the idea in its tracks before it even began to germinate.

Then he turned around to find a ginger bride standing in his TARDIS.

—-

Donna Noble flitted from relationship to relationship after school. Between being a temp and her own unique situation, nothing ever felt like a good fit. Not to mention, all the times she was dumped soon as her time was up at this or that office. She was just practice, her mum always said. People wanted to be able to impress their soulmate on the first go.

It would be just the same at her new job, her mother harangued her as she applied, got the assignment, and prepared for her first day at H.C. Clements. No one would be taking any special interest in her except as a cheap date.

But then Lance Bennett from Human Resources smiled at her across the office and gestured to the coffee machine. He was nice, friendly, and certainly her type. Basically, a dream come true, and Donna had given up dreaming a long time ago.

She couldn’t imagine why the Head of Human Resources at a posh company like this would be interested in  _ her _ of all people. Unless...

“This isn’t cause you’ve got a Donna you’re looking out for, is it? Am I the first one you’ve met?” Donna demanded over the third coffee in as many days, a sinking feeling in her stomach.

Lance pulled a face. “Oh, I don’t put any stock in that rubbish.”

Her heart leapt. “Really?”

“Why would I tie myself down to someone just because of their name? It’s nonsense. I could be totally wrong about them being ‘the one’, couldn’t I?”

“Yeah, exactly!” Donna enthused. “Unless, you know, it’s like something real specific. My friend, her parents stuck her with Nerys. Said it’d be unique enough for her soulmate to find her right away. Well they haven’t yet!” She laughed, and Lance smiled at her and Donna felt so much better about this, about everything.

Maybe Lance wasn’t meant to be her ‘one’. But if neither of them minded, what was the harm?

She couldn’t wait for him to pop the question. What if he changed his mind? What if he met someone off the street with the name she refused to even look at? Donna didn’t get lucky like this. It was now or never if she didn’t want to end up the old maid her mother said she was destined to be. Who cared about destiny? She was  _ choosing _ to love Lance.

And he’d said yes. The wedding was being planned, her mum flying into a frenzy of activity all of a sudden. Even Nerys agreed to be maid of honor, though she claimed it was due to needing to be there to believe it. They booked St. Mary’s and a hall for the reception, and Donna went for a dress fitting. She made sure to pick one that, between the veil and her hair, would cover up the old mark. A wedding dress fitting, it was  _ actually _ happening!

Her only regret was Gramps coming down with the Spanish Flu. Of course she urged him to go to hospital, but she would have loved to have him there with her mum and dad. Part of her considered delaying the whole thing, just by a week to see if he’d be any better by then, forget the honeymoon in Morocco. Lance assured her that they would be filming it anyway and he’d see the whole thing, and that calmed her down a bit.

Of course, she was a whole different bundle of nerves the day of the wedding. Donna couldn’t believe this was happening to her! Each step she took down the aisle was a step closer to the rest of her life. She was beaming ear to ear, practically glowing!

No, hang on, she really  _ was _ glowing. Donna stopped in the middle of the aisle in shock as she lit up bright gold. There was a strange sensation, it almost felt like an invisible pull on her. Everyone was staring, and it wasn’t because she was the bride.

Donna screamed.

She blinked and suddenly found herself standing in the strangest room she’d ever seen. Everyone from the wedding was gone. Instead, staring across at her in bewilderment was the skinniest bloke in a suit she’d ever had the misfortune to meet.

“What?”

“Who’re you?” Asked Donna.

“But.” That was it, he didn’t actually have an ending to that.

“Where am I?” She demanded next.

He switched right back to, “What?”

“What the hell is this place!”

“ _ What _ ?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so I'm back with the second chapter! This is going to cover the period of "Runaway Bride" up to "Partners in Crime" so there's quite a bit of dialogue from those episodes. I'm really glad people are enjoying this idea so far and I'm hoping it continues to be a fun read! Thanks for all the comments!

The Doctor could not believe it. Not  _ only _ had this woman appeared on his TARDIS out of nowhere, not  _ only _ did she not seem to have any idea how she'd done it — but her name. Her  _ name _ .

“Donna,” she said, staring out at the stars beyond the air shell, and the Doctor felt his hearts stutter in his chest and the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

No.  _ No _ . This  _ couldn't  _ be happening now.

“Human?” He checked.

“Yeah. Is that an option?”

She was human, had never even thought aliens real up until this moment, and was getting married. To someone else, which of course she was; they had only just met. And yet  _ Donna _ . Here, now, when he’d only just sworn to himself to leave all that be.

He had half a mind to wonder if this wasn't the Old Girl up to her usual tricks. If so, it wasn't funny.

So a coincidence, then. Had to be, even as he didn't put much stock in coincidence. A fluke of the universe. He’d drop her back at the church and she’d go her way while he went his.

Except that didn’t seem to be in the cards. The TARDIS put them down on a random street. Earth, London, but not where Donna needed to be. Something was wrong with his ship.

He could’ve let her go on without him and get herself back to her wedding. He could’ve started on maintenance or something far more useful than chasing after a woman who seemed convinced he’d abducted her and was from Mars for some reason. Yet he found himself following after her instead, trying to reassure her about the dimensions of his ship, helping her get transport and then money when it turned out that was required for transport.

Then Donna was picked up by a robot Santa and he knew following her had been the right thing to do all along. Now he just had to get her back.

The Doctor tracked the cab down, rigging something together in the TARDIS to get them truly flying as they were after a moving target. What turned out to be the most difficult part, of course, was getting Donna to cooperate.

“I’m in my wedding dress!”

“Yes! You look lovely!” He shouted back. “Come on!”

She jumped, falling right into his outstretched arms, and the two of them fell back onto the grating, Donna on top of him. She was warm and sort of soft and if it wasn’t for the hard floor at his back it wouldn’t have been entirely unpleasant. There was a moment where they both seemed to just look at each other. Then Donna was hurrying to push herself off him which allowed him to race up to the controls and get them up and out of the motorway.

If the TARDIS hadn’t been acting up already, this would have done it. He was forced to land them on a roof and usher Donna out ahead of him before the smoke rising from the control panels could get too thick. She sat down on the edge of the roof, defeated and discouraged, and he found himself actually feeling badly for failing to get her back on time. The Doctor placed his jacket over her shoulders and dropped onto the ledge at her side.

He took out the bio-damper ring he’d managed to grab from the TARDIS before they’d been smoked out as it were.

“Oh, do you have to rub it in?” She asked. She couldn’t know, of course, that it was very much not lost on him he was giving a woman named Donna a ring.

The Doctor explained the practicalities, then attempted to make light of the situation. “With this ring, I thee bio-damp.”

To his relief, she took it in good humor. “For better or for worse.” It seemed once she wasn’t angry or afraid, Donna could be quite nice to spend a little time sitting side-by-side with.

It was to business after that. He still needed to figure out what those pilot fish needed her for and if it had anything to do with him. It couldn’t though, he was determined to believe. Even if she had shown up on his TARDIS it didn’t have to mean anything. She wasn’t connected to him by anything other than some strange happenstance of fate — and not  _ that _ kind of happenstance; she seemed nothing more than an average, ordinary human, and he said as much.

Donna didn’t much like that.

The Doctor moved with debateable tact onto the subject of her fiancé, which appeased her somewhat. She told him a little story about coffee cups or something. For some reason, he didn’t really feel a need to retain the information.

“When was this?” The Doctor asked, attempting to appear a polite and engaged listener. 

“Six months ago.”

He felt his eyebrows raise. “Bit quick to get married. I suppose he’s your…” the Doctor gestured vaguely to her back. Her hair had been hanging over what the dress might have otherwise been showing off back there, and his jacket covered any name that might be there as well, so it wasn’t as if he could check for a  _ Lance _ himself.

“Oh! No, he’s not,” Donna answered his rather leading question. She stared straight out at the cityscape. “I haven’t got one.” 

The Doctor absorbed that quietly. No name, no name at all. Nothing to do with him. He’d expected some kind of relief and yet his mouth turned down in a frown instead.

She looked to him after a moment. “Have aliens got that, then? I didn’t even realize you’d know about all that.”

“No, we haven’t,” the Doctor lied with a sniff, glancing at his feet hanging over the roof. “I’ve just heard, you know, here and there.”

“Right, you come here often?” Donna guessed with just the slightest teasing grin curving her lips upward.

The Doctor found himself smiling back. “Something like that.” He cleared his throat and looked away again. “Anyway, what does HC Clements do?”

He learned as much as he could from Donna, which unfortunately didn’t seem to be adding up to too much just yet. She decided it was time for them to stop hiding from everyone she’d left behind at the church, and again the Doctor found himself dutifully following after her to the reception hall.

The guests, the wedding party, her family, even her fiancé were dancing away as if they hadn’t a care. The Doctor was severely unimpressed. So Donna and Lance weren’t soulmates —  _ he _ wasn’t Donna’s soulmate and even he knew he would’ve done everything in his power to find her and make sure she was safe if she’d disappeared from their wedding! What sort of awful humans was she stuck with?

The most awful, he discovered along with Donna later. They went to HC Clements with Lance after the pilot fish had ambushed them at the reception, and it was there they discovered the secret basement into the abandoned Torchwood lab containing more of the Huon particles Donna had been dosed with. At least he finally knew how she could have appeared on the TARDIS and that it truly was a coincidence.

What wasn’t a coincidence was that she’d been dosed over a period of six months, the exact same time she had known Lance for. And her groom-to-be, who the Doctor had watched dance and smile with Donna only half an hour ago, revealed what his true intentions had been all along. He didn’t know what he felt more strongly, disgust for the man who had used Donna or sympathy for the woman who had gambled her heart on him.

Once they’d made their escape from the Empress and her treacherous consort, the Doctor did his best to try and raise Donna’s spirits again. He couldn’t take away the pain from that kind of betrayal, but he could make it easier to forget for a while, standing together in the TARDIS doors watching her planet just beginning to form. Donna even cracked what could pass for a joke, even if the delivery was a little lackluster. It made him smile anyway.

Their trip also proved very informative in regards to the Racnoss Queen’s plan, though hardly after they’d discovered it were they being pulled back to the twenty-first century again. The Doctor managed to stop them in the corridor they’d ridden the segways down, where he and Donna had laughed themselves silly, and with the beginnings of a plan already forming in his mind he got to work, rambling away. Only when his rambling went totally uninterrupted did he suddenly realize something was wrong.

Donna had been taken again. The intensity of the spike of fear that went through him frightened him nearly as badly as that realization. 

Finding her with the Empress and still alive took care of most of that worry, though he somewhat botched the rescue this time, and he was able to face the Racnoss down. The Empress wouldn’t take his offer, leaving it a question of destroying the Racnoss or losing the Earth. Another impossible choice. He didn’t know what it said about him, that he was making those more and more. He pressed the button on the controller and watched as the pipes burst and the water flooded in just as he’d planned for. He watched the Empress scream for her children, all who would never have a chance because of him. Nothing had changed, not since the Time War.

“Doctor!” Somehow, Donna’s voice reached him. He looked down to find her staring up at him as water poured all around her. “You can stop now!”

It wasn’t safe for her to stay. She could’ve gone without him. Instead they helped each other out into the corridor and up the ladder. He held onto Donna and laughed with her at the sight of the trouble they’d caused for all the ships now stuck on the floor of the empty river.

After the Thames had completely drained and they made their way back to the TARDIS, the Doctor parked them where she directed outside her parent’s house. He used the TARDIS to create a little flurry, just to get her laughing again.

She stood there in the snow, ginger and brilliant and so ready for the universe, he could just see it. Donna Noble had been thrown into the strangest of circumstances today and she had risen to the occasion with more vigor and heart than he’d thought her capable at first. There were rings of gold in her irises. How had he not noticed before? He’d be a fool not to ask.

“Well you could always…”

“What?”

He wasn’t her soulmate. He didn’t care.

“Come with me.”

Yet despite her being just an ordinary human with a coincidental name, her answer somehow managed to sting more than either of her slaps. “No.”

She told him he scared her, and he knew that was his fault and his fault alone. She invited him for Christmas dinner, which they both realized wasn’t really going to happen. She made him promise to find someone else instead, but it was an empty promise at best.

He retreated into the TARDIS, and it somehow seemed even emptier and quieter than before, despite nothing having changed between Donna’s arrival and departure. The Doctor placed the ship in the Vortex; he didn’t feel much in the mood for traveling or Christmas this year.

The only dim silver lining the Doctor could find was that he truly would be able to give up on the whole idea of soulmates after this. If Donna Noble wasn’t meant to be  _ his _ Donna...he hardly saw how any other Donna could be.

—-

As soon as Donna woke up the next morning in her old bed back home to the sounds of the telly and her mum banging pots together in the kitchen, she knew, deep down, she’d made the wrong call.

She hadn’t been able to help it. She’d been  _ scared _ last night. Scared of him. Though, admittedly, for more reasons than she’d been willing to let on.

After he’d saved her from the cab and she’d had a moment to process he hadn’t kidnapped her, Donna had found herself warming up to that mad alien, little by little. She’d laughed and cried more yesterday than what seemed her entire life. It had been exhausting and somehow so  _ fulfilling _ . 

He’d taken her to see the creation of the Earth and offered her so much more. Donna didn’t understand how one person could change her life so profoundly all in the span of a day. Even if he was an alien person. That wasn’t supposed to happen to her; she’d gone her whole life knowing that.

And when she descended the stairs to find her parents busy with their morning routines, she realized just how little all the rest of it had changed.

“Did you hang up your dress?” Was the first thing her mother asked when she spotted her. She’d mostly dodged around their questions last night, and so of course her mum was feeling snippy. “You might as well save it in case a miracle happens and you need it again. Not as if we can afford another.”

“Morning, Donna,” her father greeted. “You sleep alright? Quite a day.”

“Yeah,” said Donna, sitting down at the table.

“What happened to the veil?” Her mum asked, setting a plate in front of her dad. “You weren’t wearing it at the reception.”

Donna just tuned her out, which wasn’t very hard to do. Everything seemed so muted, so dim in the morning light. She’d seen aliens and the very beginnings of this planet yesterday and now here she was sitting for breakfast like it was just another Monday. It was Christmas, she noted dully. Another Christmas she’d be spending here instead of Morocco.

For a moment, as the snow had swirled around them, he’d made her enjoy it.

Donna shook her head. “Are we visiting Gramps today?”

“Of course. Can’t leave him on the holiday,” her dad replied with a smile.

“I think I’ll just go ahead then,” she said, standing abruptly.

“What for?” Her mum asked. “You haven’t even eaten.”

“I’ll grab something there.” They couldn’t see, could they? How this was already driving her mad. How  _ stifling  _ it all had become. It was like she’d had her eyes opened to all the wonder and terror of the universe, and then it had all been whisked out of sight when the Doctor and his blue box had flown away. She hadn’t known how much she was missing until him.

Which was ridiculous. It wasn’t as if she had the word  _ Doctor _ scrawled across her back. Idly, she wondered if that would have been seen as better or worse to her mum.

She did her best to leave that train of thought behind entirely as she entered the hospital and took the lift up to her Gramp’s floor. Donna forced a smile on as she entered the room to find him already awake, the telly on and ready for the Queen’s Speech no doubt.

“Hey, there’s my girl!” Her grandad sat up a little in the bed. “Sylvia phoned, said the wedding was off. What’s happened, eh?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she sighed, dropping into a chair. “Lance is, well, he’s gone. We decided against it.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry.” Her Gramps reached for her hand. “I know how much this meant to you. You’re sure it can’t work out?”

Donna grimaced. “Pretty sure. Listen, I’d rather not get into it. How are you feeling?”

“Fine as can be, all considered. Suppose it doesn’t matter when I’m out now, you still here and all. Are you gonna go to Morocco even without the—” he seemed to remember her request, concluding with, “—well, you know?”

She shrugged. “Probably not. I missed my flight, anyway. But I might go somewhere. I want to.”

“On your own?”

“Well, there’s not exactly anyone to go with me.” Which was a lie, even if her grandad didn’t know it.

“That could be nice,” he remarked, clearly trying to make her feel better. “Bit of time to yourself. An adventure.”

“Yeah,” she said, thinking of the man she’d only just told not to be alone last night, off on his own adventure. “Gramps, how did you know Gram was your soulmate?”

“Oh. Donna, love, it’s really not so important—”

“No, but it was to you. How’d you know she was the Eileen you were looking for? I mean, what’s it like?”

Her grandad shifted in bed a bit, clearly unsure about whether to answer her. Soulmates had always been a sensitive subject in their family ever since she was born. “I suppose I don’t really remember when I knew. It just sort of happens. One minute, you’re strangers and the next you’re just chatting away like the oldest friends. You can’t imagine how you could just go back to the way things were before they were there.” Her Gramps shrugged his shoulders. “There’s really no explaining it.”

“No, I — I understand.” What she didn’t understand was how she felt like she’d experienced exactly that yesterday. He was an alien; she didn’t have a proper mark. So what was going on?

There was no point in it, though, was there? Time Lords didn’t do that sort of thing, he’d said, and it wasn’t as if he would’ve had a reason to lie about that the way Donna had lied about her own strange mark. 

He’d probably be all indignant if he found out she had, tell her it was clearly the reason she of all people had ended up on the Racnoss menu. She supposed the pattern of circles laid over each other could be sort of like a web. Maybe that’s what they’d been about all along, marking her for spider chow.

“I know you think it’s hopeless, sweetheart, but anyone would be lucky to have you. And if that Lance fellow couldn’t see that, then someone else will.”

Her attempt at a smile this time felt even weaker than before. “Yeah, maybe. Thanks, Gramps.”

Donna went to find some food and by the time she returned her parents had arrived. They all passed around the gifts and tried to talk about anything other than the wedding that wasn’t. She was probably crazy to be thinking about soulmates at a time when her life had just crashed and burned all around her. Her job was lost in the flood, she wouldn’t be able to keep affording the flat she’d been sharing with Lance, not that she wanted to stay there anymore, and now everyone was going to think she’d gotten cold feet and ruined her marriage. Just thinking about everything she’d have to deal with was enough to give her a headache.

Donna decided to take her trip first before making any other decisions. She chose Egypt, seeing as she’d always wanted to go. But if she’d been hoping for the same kind of thrill she’d had that Christmas Eve, she was sorely disappointed. Everything was about the schedule, the tour guides droned on, and nothing of excitement happened at all. Even seeing the pyramids couldn’t shake the knowledge that something crucial was  _ missing _ .

But if the traveling and adventure wasn’t all that had made her feel alive that day, then what was? She returned home, discouraged.

Donna put in for another assignment at the temp agency and moved her things back home, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise when her father’s diagnosis came back terminal. She wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else.

It became clearer each day that the treatments just weren’t working. Eventually he asked to just quit them altogether, preferring to be at home. Her mum stayed with him every minute.

“That’s all I need, Sylvie,” her father said softly from his bed, patting her hand.

Donna handled the funeral arrangements. Her mother was inconsolable for nearly a week and leaned on grandad through the whole service. Later, Donna stood by her side at the grave.

“Is it...worse?” She asked hesitantly. “Knowing you were…?”

Her mother didn’t look at her. “I wouldn’t change a minute.” She turned and walked away.

Donna stood there a while longer. She supposed it made sense; at least her mum knew she’d been loved, and had been able to love her dad in return. He’d been surrounded by family in his last moments, a family he only had because he’d met his  _ Sylvia _ .

Donna didn’t know who she could expect to have. In all likelihood, nobody. She didn’t want to be alone anymore.

So if she couldn’t have a soulmate, she would find the next best thing.

There was no telling how long it might take. He could be at the beginning or the end of the universe for all she knew. But this was the one thing Donna was determined not to give up on. There had to be something that would bring him back to Earth. Some invasion or attack he’d come racing in to stop. She could do the same. She could try, and then once she’d found the Doctor she could tell him she’d been all wrong to turn him down. 

And then it could be just like Christmas Eve, running around and seeing fantastic things. She could handle it as long as he was there. She’d done it once already, and he’d said she could survive anything just like that ship of his.

The Doctor wouldn't turn on her like Lance, and there was no fear of him dropping her for some soulmate because he didn't have one. That was about as near to a life together with someone she could wish to have. And Donna was determined to have it.

She kept working, but in between she researched all the strange things she could find on the internet. Crop circles, sea monsters, there was so much going on in the world once her eyes were open to it! And one of those things just had to lead to him.

Her mum and even her Gramps thought she was just going along as usual, no direction. Infrequent work, no attempts to move out — what was the point of renting a flat if she was planning to leave for the universe at any minute? She was sure if she told them that or anything close to the truth, her mother at least would laugh in her face for her trouble. Donna did try explaining things to her grandad, the night Stacy Campbell disappeared and she caught sight of the first thing alien she’d seen since that Christmas Eve.

“I’m not drifting. I’m waiting.”

“For what?”

“The right man.”

Her Gramps did laugh, but there wasn't anything mean in it. “Same old story! A man!”

She shook her head, smiling in spite of herself. “No, I don't mean like that! You and I both know that.”

“Just because we've never understood what you’ve got for your mark doesn't mean you can't find him,” her grandad insisted.

“No, I’m looking for something  _ real _ . He's real, the man I’m looking for. I’ve seen him. I’ve met him. Just once,” Donna sighed, “and then I let him fly away.”

“Well, there you are. Sounds an awful lot to me like he might just be the one. Go and find him.”

She should've known he'd see it that way. “He’s not, really. And I’m not his one, he hasn't got one. Anyway, I’ve tried. He's nowhere.”

“Oi, not like you to give up,” he remarked. He regaled her with that old story from her childhood about the bus to Strathclyde, and even though she'd heard it a million times it still managed to pick her up a bit.

“You’re right. Because he's still out there, somewhere. And I’ll find him, Gramps. Even if I have to wait a hundred years, I’ll find him.”

He was watching her, she knew, and probably thought her silly denying any kind of soulmate connection between her and the Doctor. She supposed she couldn't expect him to understand; Donna hardly understood it herself. All she knew was she wouldn't be happy until she found that Spaceman again.

Adipose Industries was shaping up to be her best shot. There was clearly  _ something _ going on with those pills, and, Doctor or no, Donna wasn't about to leave it alone. She went in the next morning and waited out the day in a bathroom stall, knowing by the time things were closing up for the day anyone who might have seen her would have forgotten about her, leaving her free to do some after-hours snooping.

Only before she could leave, her mum called, and before she could get off the phone, the door opened. Donna heard three sets of footsteps and the woman from the presentation’s voice, Foster or whatever.

“We know you're in here, so why don't you make this nice and easy and show yourself?”

Donna held her breath and made sure her feet weren't visible below the walls of the stall. How had they found her out?

Foster had her guards start kicking open the stall doors one by one, but they stopped before reaching hers.

“There you are.”

Turned out the journalist who’d been asking all those questions at the presentation yesterday had been in here with Donna the whole time. Foster and the guards took her away, and Donna couldn't help both the guilt and relief at someone else being caught. She'd have to follow along and make sure that woman was alright, plus see if she could learn anything else about what was really going on with Adipose.

There were no other guards stationed in the hall, thankfully, and so Donna was able to creep right up to the door. There was a round window set in it allowing her a view of the office and the wall of windows on the opposite side. Foster was talking to the journalist who she'd had tied to a chair.

“Officially the capsule attracts all the fat cells and flushes them away. Well, it certainly attracts them. That part’s true. But it binds the fat together and galvanizes it to form a body.”

“What do you mean, a body?” The captive woman asked, her clear apprehension matched by Donna's growing excitement.

Foster took out one of the very same creatures Donna had glimpsed leaving out Stacy Campbell’s window only the previous night. This, this was it! Aliens! Plots! Just like before; she'd finally found it!

Only then did Donna realize, her eyes straying to the windows straight ahead, that she'd found far more than it.

She'd found  _ him _ .

The Doctor, in a window cleaner’s cradle, was staring back at her like he couldn't believe his own eyes. Just like Christmas Eve.

His mouth moved, and Donna read her name on his lips.  _ “Donna?” _

Something like this wasn't supposed to happen to someone like her. For some reason or other, the universe had seemingly decided it didn't care.

Donna's own mouth had already dropped open.  _ “Doctor!” _


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! Thanks again everyone for the reviews! We're finally getting into the Doctor and Donna's travels, so a lot of interaction which is always for the best. Hoping you continue to enjoy!

The Doctor could not believe it. _Again._

Donna Noble had careened right back into his life as suddenly as she had the first time. Even more unbelievably, she'd done so _on purpose._ She, of all the humans in all the history of planet Earth, had tracked him down and found him. Yes, it had been coincidence that brought them both to Adipose Industries — coincidences abounded around himself and Donna, it seemed — but it didn't change the fact she had somehow managed to place herself right back at his side.

And the Doctor didn't know how he felt about that. He stared at her car, parked only a few feet from where he'd landed the TARDIS that morning, and only dimly registered Donna letting his arm go.

“That is like _destiny_ ,” she exclaimed, and in his head he had to privately wonder if she might be more right about that than she realized.

But she couldn't be — she wasn't. Yet here Donna was, the only Donna who he had ever met let alone felt himself drawn to, and she was…opening the boot of her car for some reason.

The reason turned out to be several bags, suitcases, and a hatbox stuffed inside. She began loading up his arms with them, the Doctor only just barely managing to snap himself out of his numb state in order to accommodate her.

Donna was chattering away a mile a minute, so excited about the possibilities she could see awaiting her. But gradually, she seemed to realize he was not meeting it with his own chatter, for she slowed and then looked at him still standing and staring at her in the TARDIS doorway. “You’re not saying much.”

“It's just,” he said, then stopped himself. How could he even try to explain to her what was going on, the conflict warring in his mind? He’d thought himself destined to be alone after she turned him down that Christmas Eve. Finding Martha had been a brief respite, but he’d ruined it all with his own loneliness and self loathing. Even doctors-in-training couldn't work miracles.

Then for a moment, when his old friend had come out of the watch and terrorized them all, he hadn't been able to help the faintest hope that maybe the Face of Boe was right — he wasn't alone and wouldn't have to be, with one of his own people back. It could be like before the Time War, before he’d ever given the name on his back any serious thought. But the Master must have known that, and as always knew just how to deny him even that small comfort.

The last of his kind and companionless once again, he'd had little real direction or motivation. Now Donna was here, just like before, and if it seemed too good to be true then he supposed that was because it _was_ too good to be true. She wasn't the Donna that was meant for him, and yet here she was. And he couldn’t tell her any of that, could he?

“It’s a funny old life, in the TARDIS,” he decided on instead.

The smile dropped off her face. “You don't want me.”

“I’m not saying that.” He wanted her more than he should, considering he was barking up the completely wrong tree.

“But you asked me,” Donna reminded, sounding so very hurt that something twisted painfully in his chest.

He had asked her, and he couldn't imagine what would stop him asking again, not even another Donna. The proper Donna, he supposed. But that was a bridge they might have to cross someday.

“Would you rather be on your own?”

“No,” he answered immediately. “Actually, no. But—” he set her bags on the ground, struggling to think of some way of addressing the problem without actually addressing it. How to set some kind of boundary without revealing why the boundary needed to be set in the first place. “The last time, with Martha, like I said, it- it got complicated. And that was all my fault,” he admitted, feeling badly enough he was using Martha as a means of handling his Donna-issue.

She watched him, saying nothing, allowing him to say his bit. Donna always seemed to know when and when not to interrupt him. How could she know him so well? How was this fair?

“I just want a mate,” the Doctor sighed.

Donna’s eyes narrowed. “You just want _to mate_?”

Oh, he’d gone and stuck his foot in it, hadn’t he? “I just want a mate! Not a- not like—”

“You’re not mating with me, sunshine!” Donna declared, retreating half behind the TARDIS door as if afraid he might pounce suddenly.

“ _A_ mate. I want _a_ mate,” he enunciated, hoping that would clear things up. “A friend.” There, that was the word. He should have gone with that from the start. Calling Donna any kind of mate of his was dangerous enough territory as it was.

“Well, just as well, because I’m not having any of that nonsense,” she said, coming back out of hiding at the least. “I mean, you’re just a long streak of nothing, you know. Alien nothing.”

He nodded in acknowledgement of her rather harsh assessment. Of course Donna wouldn’t have been harboring any interest towards him — not that he wanted her to, because that could only end badly.

“And I don’t mess around with that ‘mate’ stuff either, remember?”

“Right, yeah. Nor me,” the Doctor lied once again, looking at a spot just to the left of her. “There we are, then. Okay.”

She lost the stern look, and a smile rose tentatively in its place. “I can come?”

“Yeah. Course you can, yeah.” They’d weathered the storm, so to speak, and now that they knew where they stood there was nothing to keep Donna from traveling with him. Finally. A smile stretched across his face. “I’d love it.”

Donna let out a delighted laugh and ran at him, her clear intent a hug. But she stopped just short of him abruptly. “Car keys!”

The Doctor stood with arms still held open. “What?”

She took out a set of jingling keys on a ring. “I’ve still got my mum’s car keys!” Then she darted past him, calling over her shoulder, “I won’t be a minute!”

He watched her run off, still rather thrown. Donna had that effect on him. Would continue to have that effect on him, because she was coming along. He was still having trouble believing this was real.

Her many bags were evidence enough, and he supposed those needed to be gotten on board before anything else. The Doctor began to gather them up. He had to make a couple trips to get it all inside and only brought them as far as the console room. No doubt Donna would want to decide where exactly they ended up, and she'd be back any minute now.

He’d left the door unlocked so she let herself in. Donna barely let him get started on the basics before reminding him she’d had the crash course already. “Although frankly, you could turn the heating up,” she told him.

He elected to ignore that criticism. “So, whole wide universe, where do you want to go?”

She met him right at the console. “Oh, I know exactly the place.”

He hadn’t expected that. Then again, he hadn’t really been expecting Donna Noble before today, so.

“Which is?”

She turned her head to the left. “Two and a half miles that way.”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, but began entering the approximate coordinates.

“Can you fly it in the air, like you did on the motorway?” Donna requested.

“I don't know,” he began.

She grabbed onto his arm, looking up at him with beseeching eyes. “Just for a little bit? Please?”

“Why does it need to fly?” He asked to avoid immediately saying yes. That didn't stop his fingers from already moving to push the right buttons and flip the right switches, which Donna clearly noticed.

“It's important.” She hurried down the ramp. “Can I open the door?”

“You’ve never asked before.”

“Oi! Cheek!” She chided, though it lacked any real irritation. Donna had to be awfully excited about where they were and who they were showing off for. She pulled open the door, and the Doctor saw they were above a neighborhood not far from London proper. There was a hill below them with a single human stood on top of it. One of Donna’s relatives, he supposed. She must have wanted to say goodbye, and in quite the spectacular fashion.

Donna began waving her arm madly as the man on the hill whooped and cheered. The Doctor found himself giving a jaunty wave of his own.

Donna shut the doors soon enough, likely remembering what happened last time the Old Girl was flown like this for too long. She turned around, face flushed with happiness, and came back up to where he stood at the controls. “I’ve never seen him so excited.” She did hug him now, he was pleased to note. “Thank you.”

“Not at all.” The Doctor smiled broadly and held on as long as he felt could go unquestioned. “So then, first official trip. What's it going to be?”

Donna stepped back and looked at him sharply. “What, right now?”

“Yeah, right now,” he echoed. “Problem?”

“Yes,” Donna said emphatically. “It’s the middle of the night!”

“Well, technically, there’s no night or day in the Vortex. No time either, really.”

“Yeah, well by the time I get my things unpacked all I will be ready for is a bed,” she told him. A thought seemed to occur to her. “Are there bedrooms here?”

“Course there's bedrooms,” he replied. “There’s lots of things. I just thought we’d get to that later, you know, after the universe. You can’t be that tired, can you?”

“You try running around in flats all night and tell me if you’re raring to go after that,” she shot back, then turned and hefted the hatbox in her arms. “Now, come on, you can give me the tour at least.”

The Doctor watched her march down a corridor at random and sighed, grabbing the handles of two bags and breaking into a jog after her. “Donna,” he called.

“How long does this go on?” He heard her voice echo from up ahead.

“Even I don’t know.” The TARDIS appeared to be in a good mood, for when he rounded the corner he found Donna waiting right there as opposed to halfway across the ship. “Okay, tour then. The rooms tend to get mixed around a bit—”

“Figures,” she snorted.

“— _but_ ,” he continued as though he had not been interrupted, “if you’re nice and she likes you, the TARDIS will help you navigate. Kitchen’s been somewhere down this way the last few weeks,” he said, pointing. “And the library’s been down the other corridor. Swimming pool, too.”

“So which is my room?”

“Any room. Take your pick,” he told her, gesturing with an arm to the many doors lining the corridor.

Donna chose with a remarkable determination, striding to one and yanking the door open. Whatever was inside made her stop short. “Oh!”

Curious and also eager to divest himself of the rather heavy bags he carried, the Doctor stepped up behind her to have a look.

“Oh yes,” he agreed, “she must really like you.”

The room Donna had chosen — or, more accurately, the room the TARDIS had let her choose — could put a presidential suite to shame. Spacious, with what looked to be a walk-in closet, an en suite, an ornate vanity in one corner, and a wide, very comfortable-looking bed set against another wall. There was a painting of the Rosette Nebula where a window might have otherwise been, and a loveseat was placed beneath that.

“Very nice,” said Donna, eyes nearly popping as she looked about to take it all in. “I could get used to this.”

“Could you?” He teased with a grin.

She ignored him, instead walking over to set the hatbox down by the closet before going over to flop onto the bed. He didn’t blame her, seeing as he would’ve done the same. Probably at a bit of a run, too.

“So, I’ll just go get the rest of it then, shall I?” He asked with a somewhat sardonic edge to it.

“Yeah, thanks,” Donna replied, kicking off her shoes.

The Doctor shook his head, looking up to the ceiling for a moment before setting the bags he’d already brought with them by the foot of her bed and heading back to the console room. He had to wonder if Donna had been living out of her car, she had so much packed away. If he got the two heaviest suitcases out of the way first, he could probably manage the rest all on a third trip. It was with that in mind that the Doctor gathered the bulky luggage up and went back down the corridor.

He elbowed the door back open to find Donna busy unpacking. Her undergarments, specifically.

“Oi!” She dropped the panties she'd been holding to glare at him. “Don't you knock?”

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, dropping the suitcases and immediately backing out the door. The Doctor backed straight into the opposite wall and let his head thunk back against it.

Brilliant. Just what he needed, to be thinking about Donna’s under...things. They were just clothes, he told himself. Humans typically wore them. Most aliens wore something clothing-like. It wasn’t as if he’d caught her indecent. But boundaries...boundaries had been a very good idea.

Best to just get the remaining bags. The Doctor pushed off the wall and jogged back to the console room.

This time on the return trip he did knock, calling out for good measure, “Donna? Got the rest of it.” He decided he should probably wait a minute before opening the door as well.

Though before the minute was up, it was being pulled open from the inside. Donna favored him with the slightest smile. “It’s safe, you dumbo.” Then she stepped back to let him through.

The first two bags looked to have been cleared away. She’d already gotten both suitcases opened and half unpacked as well. Very efficient.

“Take as much time as you need unpacking or sleeping or whatnot. Get settled in. We’ll start fresh in the — well, morning, if that’s what you want to call it,” he rambled as he placed the remaining bags down.

“And how do I find you?” She asked.

“Oh, I’m in the console room, usually. Library, sometimes.”

“What if you're asleep?”

The Doctor very nearly asked why she would want to find him when he was asleep, but thought it not wise in light of their all too recent conversation. Boundaries. “It shouldn't be a problem.”

Donna frowned, but seemed to accept it as an answer for the meantime. “So, where are we going tomorrow?”

“Oh, now you’re interested? No, it’s a surprise for you,” he decided on the spot.

She gaped at him. “Are you joking?”

The Doctor backed out of the room. “Goodnight.”

“Doctor!”

“Get some sleep!”

“I’ll get _you_ in a minute!”

She didn’t appear to be making any move to chase after him, though, which he was unsure whether or not to be disappointed by.

What was he thinking? Donna was here, was _back_ , who had time to be disappointed? Maybe the universe was determined he be the last of his kind, maybe it often left him alone, maybe it wanted to tease him with this woman who seemed a perfect match to him in all but name — well, his name, he supposed.

But for however long the universe let him have Donna Noble, he thought things might just be okay.

—-

Having a best mate was rather like everything Donna had always hoped having a soulmate would be, just without all the relationship bits. So that was better, really, wasn't it?

Relationships were messy and complicated, and she and the Doctor weren’t those things at all. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so happy before traveling on the TARDIS. They just had fun — when they weren’t running for their lives, that was, though admittedly that could still be fun at times. He definitely thought so.

There were ups and downs of course, like when they’d ended up in Pompeii instead of Rome, and Donna had learned just what it meant to make an impossible choice. She didn’t know how he’d lived having to make those all on his own before. Least now he had her to make them together.

And at the very least, they’d saved the family they’d met. Caecilius, their would-be TARDIS thief; his kind and long-suffering wife Metella; their rebellious son Quintus; and daughter Evelina, who had been put on the track to seer-hood due to being born with no soulmate mark. Donna didn’t think she’d ever forget them, or how the Doctor had saved them for her.

They made a great team, really. The Doctor was brilliant, daring, and clever, but Donna was there to slow him down and show him it wasn’t all about fixed points and big picture timeline stuff. They balanced each other out.

Unfortunately, they seemed to balance each other out a little _too_ well. She’d lost track of how many times people they met on their travels assumed they were soulmates, or even just a couple! Donna had repeated the old “haven’t got a mark” line so often she was nearly beginning to believe it. She might as well not have one; for once, Donna found herself far too content with her situation to even idly dream about soulmates or wonder about her mark.

It occurred to Donna some time after the Ood. Well, more specifically it occurred to her after dinner one night. Spaceman offered to do the washing up — she had a suspicion he was still worried about her asking to go home after hearing the Song of Captivity, but Donna was too embarrassed to bring it up again even just to reassure him — and as she made trips back and forth from table to sink to bring him the dishes she picked up his humming and then singing. It wasn't very good; he seemed to have trouble carrying a tune, for one thing, and for another she didn't understand a single word.

“What's that?” She asked eventually, giving up on trying to identify it. It _seemed_ familiar, but then he was singing nonsense, wasn't he?

“Hm? Oh, just a Venusian lullaby.”

“It sort of sounds like ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’,” Donna remarked.

He considered that for a moment. “Might do. It's not, though. Completely different meaning. Used to know the whole thing, but I seem to have forgotten some of the words.”

He frowned, more than a little troubled.

“Well, that's what happens when you're coming up on a millennium,” she said airily, patting his arm with mock sympathy.

“Yeah, I suppose — oi!”

She managed to dart out into the corridor before he could do much more than look round at her with an injured expression, and Donna couldn't help the peal of laughter that escaped her.

He didn't seem about to chase her, and when she listened Donna could hear him chuckling to himself. A smile spread over her face at the sound. She liked knowing she could get him laughing, even about things like this.

“Doctor?” She poked her head back in the archway, and he looked back at her over his shoulder. “Could you teach it to me once you’ve remembered it all?”

He grinned. “If you like.”

Donna excused herself back to her room for bed. Funny how that translation circuit worked sometimes. She hadn't understood a word of that song, not to mention whenever he started making exclamations in other languages, it often took her a moment to recall the meaning from the snatches of French and Italian she knew. Oughtn’t the TARDIS turn those into English for her instead? She'd ask, but he’d probably get all defensive of his ship and claim it was too complicated to explain. With a scoff, she shut off the lamp and closed her eyes. And that's when it occurred to her.

Abruptly, Donna sat up in bed. There were _alien languages_.

What if her mark was only strange because she'd been on the wrong planet? She was traveling the whole universe now! Who knew when and where she might meet the person who was meant for her? The idea that she could bump into him while on one of her and the Doctor's trips seemed a little nerve-wracking at the moment, to tell the truth. But surely once she got used to the idea she'd feel much better about it. Right?

Now there might at least be a _chance_. That was all she'd ever wanted as a child.

Donna got up and went into the en suite, flicking the light on. She turned her back to the mirror, pulled her shirt up over her head, then held her hair to one side as she craned her neck around to look. She’d spent so long learning to avoid even noticing the mark, but what if—

Nothing had changed.

“What?”

That couldn’t be right! Was there actually something wrong with the translation circuits? Or was her mark not even in alien?

If anyone had the answer, it’d be Spaceman. Donna yanked her shirt back on and went out into the corridor. She found him — or, more accurately, his legs — sticking out from under the grating beneath the console.

“Does the TARDIS translate all writing? Or just Earth writing?”

“No, it does more than Earth.” He paused in whatever it was he was doing to push himself out far enough to look at her. “Why do you ask?”

Donna hadn't anticipated needing a reason. She couldn't tell the Doctor she'd been lying about not having a mark, that'd be so shaming! “Well, what if I need to read a sign somewhere?”

“You should be fine. Anyway, you’ll have me there if you're not.”

While Donna appreciated his assurance, now was really not the time. She seized on the less sentimental aspect of his statement. “So there are some languages that don't translate?”

“Some,” he acknowledged, “but they're very rare. You shouldn't need to worry about them, honestly Donna. Is this the sort of thing that keeps you up at night?”

Belatedly, Donna realized she hadn't even pulled on a robe over her nightclothes. She crossed her arms over her chest. “And what if it is?”

“Then I’m happy to have helped you to a more restful sleep.” He retreated back under the grating. “Pleasant dreams.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she huffed, and stalked out of the console room.

So her soulmate might be from some far-off, barely heard of planet. Oh God, was he from the backcountry of the universe or something? She didn’t think she could make it out in the intergalactic sticks!

Donna tried to calm down. She still didn’t even have a name, so there was no point worrying yet. Probably no point at all, if the name on her back was in some language even the TARDIS wouldn’t translate.

But Spaceman knew those languages. And if he’d learned them, then there were probably books! She could look it up, see if there was anything that looked remotely like her mark and figure out how to translate it all on her own. Plan set, Donna rolled over and went to sleep.

It turned out, however, that the language dictionaries section of the TARDIS library was _enormous_. He had everything, from English to something called Silurian to flipping Aramaic. This was going to take longer than she’d hoped.

Donna pulled down every alien text she was unfamiliar with, careful to mind the swimming pool he’d neglected that first night to mention was _in_ the library, and began sorting. Everything that seemed to have characters like an alphabet got put back. Anything that had circles, big or small, she placed in a pile to go through.

The Doctor found her a few hours in. “Donna? What are you up to?”

“Nothing,” she said immediately, snapping the book she'd been flipping through closed. That of course allowed him a perfect view of the cover when he leaned over the back of her chair.

“ _English to Draconian_ ,” he read aloud. “What do you want to learn Draconian for?”

“Maybe I want to be able to do something on my own, ever think of that?” Donna snapped, leery of him looking too much into this. “Like I said last night, just in case.”

“The TARDIS translates Draconian,” he informed her.

“Well how am I supposed to know which ones it does or doesn't? Not as if you made a list,” she defended. “I don't even know who speaks Draconian!”

“The Draconians do.”

“Oh, of course they do!”

“Donna,” the Doctor sighed, coming around the front of her chair. “I promise, I will translate whatever your heart desires whenever it desires it. It's gonna take you decades to learn an alien language by yourself, and, frankly, I can think of a million better uses of our time.”

Donna looked up at him. “Like?”

“The Hanging Gardens of Babylon?”

The book slid off her lap and onto the floor. “No. Really?”

He nodded. Donna leapt up and hugged him.

“Oh my God! Have I mentioned I bloody love you?”

“Once or twice,” he said, rocking them side to side slightly as he held on. She could hear the grin in his voice, obviously pleased with himself. When they both pulled back, he offered his hand. “Shall we?”

Though Donna forgot her language woes for a time, she recalled them the next time she came to the library — for the swimming pool this time. As she did a few laps, she thought things over.

There was really no way of discovering what language her soulmate spoke and if they'd be able to communicate until she met him. And she knew she didn't really have to worry about it as long as the Doctor was there.

But, if she found her soulmate, could she really expect the Doctor to be there forever?

Setting aside the fact her soulmate was an alien — which was a bit hard already — her soulmate was likely somebody who lived in one time and one place. Which was just something the Doctor didn't do. Would he just leave her behind with whoever her soulmate was?

Maybe she could convince her soulmate to come on board the TARDIS. They could all just travel together — but then, she didn't really think the Doctor would want that sort of thing on his ship, seeing how he was with domestic. She hardly thought he'd offer to cook or tidy up for more than just Donna, at any rate. And truthfully, Donna couldn't picture her, the Doctor, and her soulmate living together very well either.

So either she'd be left behind on some planet or she'd be bringing her soulmate back to Earth with her and end up right back home. She could deal with him being an alien — provided he wasn't the giant insect kind. Her best friend was an alien, after all, long streak that he was. But once she found her soulmate, her traveling would be over and the Doctor would be gone.

And that was something Donna wasn't sure she could deal with.

So then, maybe there was no need for rush. She'd waited this long, hadn't she? There was still plenty of the universe left to see. This right now, traveling with the Doctor, was the happiest she'd ever been, and she wasn't near ready to give that up. If they came across her soulmate, well, she'd decide what to do about it then.

When the Doctor asked her a few days later, “So, how are the language lessons coming along?” Donna had a ready answer.

“I’ve given them up. Waste of time.”

“Quite right,” he agreed, rounding the console to end up at her side. “Well, since you've got some free space in your schedule, I was wondering if there was something else you'd be interested in learning.”

She tilted her head in exaggerated consideration. “And what's that?”

He gestured wordlessly to the controls.

Donna stared. “Okay, you have got to be kidding me this time.”

“Really not.”

“But it's your _ship_ ,” she disputed. She knew how men were about their transport, even alien ones. This had to be his baby or something! “I mean, why me?”

“Well,” his gaze fell to somewhere about her shoes, and one of his hands went up to rub at his neck. “I thought you might like to be able to do it on your own.” He looked up and met her eyes, and he seemed very relieved to find her smiling.

“Yeah, I might.” She stepped in a bit closer, till their elbows were practically brushing. “Where do I start?”

Donna supposed there still was something strange about her mark situation. If it came down to a choice between them, she would choose her best mate over her soulmate every time. And she knew that wasn't supposed to be right.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so sorry about the long wait you guys! The school semester started back up again and so finding the right rhythm to get my work done while still writing has been a process. I tried to make up for it by making this chapter extra long. There's a lot to cover; you'll see events (and some canon dialogue which I do not claim to own) that range from "The Sontaran Stratagem" to "Silence in the Library". So thank you all for the continued kudos, comments and bookmarks. I've been really taken aback by the positive response this fic has gotten, and I hope you continue to enjoy!

Truth be told, Martha Jones wasn’t surprised in the least when the Doctor had answered her call with a new companion in tow. It wasn’t as if she’d waited all that long to move on, and she was the one who’d had the silly crush on him. 

No, what did surprise her was when the actual introduction happened. He said it like it was nothing. “Martha, Donna. Donna, Martha.”

And yet, it wasn’t nothing at all. It was  _ everything _ . Because Martha Jones knew something she wasn't supposed to know.

Being John Smith’s maid in 1913 had been a hell of an ordeal, but one thing that had happened — that had changed the way she'd seen him completely — had been the glimpse she had gotten whilst the human Doctor had been changing one morning.

_ Donna _ . The name on his back had stunned her then. Martha hadn't realized the Doctor  _ had _ a soulmate mark, much less a human one. And if she had thought so, she would've assumed the name had to be Rose. At least it hadn't been Joan; that would've been more than she was willing to deal with.

Briefly, Martha had even entertained the idea that the unfamiliar name had been a fabrication of the chameleon arch, randomly generated for John Smith. But a Donna here with him now? That couldn't possibly be coincidence.

Donna immediately endeared Martha to her before she could register much beyond her own shock, poking fun at the Doctor's expense with an ease that belied the fondness in her eyes. Martha found herself tentatively rather liking the other woman. She was certainly good for his ego, anyway!

“Well, congratulations at any rate,” Martha offered, still grinning about hugs and paper cuts.

Donna blinked, the smile she wore not quite leaving her face. “Pretty sure we’re supposed to be telling you that.”

She tilted her head to the side. “Well, aren't you—”

“What exactly is it we’re here for, Martha?” The Doctor spoke right over her. Donna sent him a look, but Martha was more preoccupied by the high pitch of his voice and the wide-eyed panic he was regarding her with. He’d clearly caught her meaning, at least.

It was rare she got to hold knowing something over him, but unfortunately she had a job to do. Personal catching up would have to wait. “Now that you mention it.” She took out her walkie-talkie just as it crackled to life.

“Doctor Jones, report to base, please. Over.”

Martha turned slightly away from the pair in order to respond and to take charge of the operation. Soon enough she was leading the Doctor and Donna to UNIT’s temporary base outside the ATMOS factory.

The Time Lord seemed unimpressed with their organization and operation, eschewing military protocol in regards to himself and only cracking something close to a smile when Donna demanded the respect and honors for herself instead. He was given a sample of ATMOS to examine once they moved to the factory, and Martha was left to chaperone him alone as he quickly chased off Colonel Mace. It was only when she pointed out her continued commitment to nonviolence that he started to warm again.

“That's more like Martha Jones,” he said.

She shared his tentative smile. “Look, as long as this is just about UNIT, then fine. But I swear knowing about you and Donna was an accident.” Just as quickly as they'd reached a sort of calm, he paled again, the proud look dropping off his face. 

“Martha,” he began, but she wanted to make herself heard before the lecture, so she carried right on.

“I never told you I saw the name because I didn't think it mattered. So I'm sorry you couldn't surprise me — surprised you put stock into any of that, really.” Martha didn't really, not with her mum who had declared she'd clearly met the wrong Clive and her dad who had decided he never wanted to meet another Francine in his life. “But does it make a difference, me knowing already? Unless you and Donna are taking things slow—”

“We’re not taking things anywhere,” the Doctor stated bluntly. 

Martha sat back. “What do you mean?”

“I mean we're not together. Not soulmates,” he clarified. “Donna hasn't got a name.”

“Really?” She knew that could happen, of course, and had even sat in on a removal surgery during one of her rotations at the Royal Hope. “Sure she didn't just get hers taken off because it said ‘Doctor’?”

It figured he didn't appreciate her teasing one bit. “She told me the day we met.”

“So...it's just a coincidence?” She asked, dubious.

“Yes,” he answered. “And Martha, you  _ cannot  _ tell her. Donna doesn't know I’ve got a name, least of all hers — well, not  _ hers _ , but—” he struggled to find an end to that sentence, tense and refusing meet her eyes. “I don't want her to think that's why I have her around, because it's not, and I’d travel with her no matter what her name was. But if she finds out the truth now there's no telling what she’ll think of me.”

And Martha could see just how much that thought terrified him. She wanted to reassure him; the little she knew of Donna made her feel the other woman could forgive him if he simply confessed to the lie. Even if it made things awkward for a time, they'd both have to realize his mark didn't have any real effect on their friendship. Right?

“So you don't really think you’ve got a soulmate, do you?”

He looked up from the ATMOS device at her, but said nothing.

Martha never had been very good at listening when he meant for her to leave something alone. “Or that Donna's…?”

“She hasn't got one,” he repeated, voice tight.

Donna herself entered the room just as loud and confident as before, and the Doctor sent Martha a look that was as much a warning as it was a plea, even as he was rising from his chair to meet the redhead halfway.

“Why, what's inside it?” He asked, indicating the empty file Donna had brought with her. “Or what's not inside it?”

“Sick days. There aren’t any. Hundreds of people working here and no one’s sick. Not one hangover, man flu, sneaky little shopping trip, nothing. Not ever. They don’t get ill.”

“That can't be right,” said Martha, joining them.

“You’ve been checking out the building. Should've been checking out the workforce,” said Donna.

“I can see why he likes you.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, and Martha quickly tacked on a “You are good.”

She needn't have worried about some form of reprimand; the Doctor was too busy smiling at Donna. And Martha realized — he  _ really  _ liked her. More than he and Donna — and apparently the universe — had agreed he was supposed to. And she'd thought their situation had been a mess!

Colonel Mace assigned her to examining the workers they'd found at the ATMOS factory, and there were far more important things to do than worry about the Doctor's romantic troubles. She'd called him here to help them, after all, so it was best to just get on with business.

But since Donna was coming along to help her set up, it didn't hurt to multitask, did it?

“So, how long ago did you start up with the Doctor?”

“Oh, well, that's sort of a long story. See, I met him two Christmases back on my wedding day.” Donna noticed her eyes flick down to her bare ring finger, for she clarified, “It didn't end up happening.”

“Stole you from your wedding, did he?” Martha asked with a grin.

“Don't you start. You know better than me it's not like that.” Donna raised a finger as if to warn her off. Martha was tempted to tell her she was fairly sure it  _ was  _ like that, at least on the Doctor's end even if he was being secretive about it, but a thought occurred to her.

“Hold on, two Christmases ago was before I knew him.”

“Yeah. I was glad he found you in between, cause he's rubbish on his own.” Donna shook her head, even as the corners of her lips curved upwards. “I was lucky enough to find him after I turned him down the first time.”

Oh. So he really  _ did _ have reason to fear the possibility of rejection.

“Do you think I should warn my mum about the ATMOS in her car?” Donna asked her, and Martha blinked, working to refocus.

“Better safe than sorry.”

“I’ll give her a call,” Donna decided offhand.

Martha paused. “Donna. Do they know where you are? Your family. I mean, that you’re traveling with the Doctor?”

She could tell that Donna hadn’t put much thought into it, just the same as she had done. Martha didn’t want to scare the other woman off traveling or away from him, but she felt it only fair to warn her of the worst things that could happen. Donna’s horrified look at the recounting of what happened to her family aboard the Valiant had Martha rushing to assure her, “It wasn’t the Doctor’s fault, but you need to be careful. Because you know the Doctor. He’s wonderful, he’s brilliant, but he’s like fire. Stand too close...and people get burnt.”

And Donna could have no idea how much danger she was already in, close as the Doctor seemed to long to be.

—-

It had been a quiet few days, ever since Donna had flown off in a little blue box with the man — the alien — she'd been waiting for. Sylvia was getting in a bit of a fuss over it, he could tell even if his daughter would never admit it. Wilf wasn’t exactly worried as of yet, having a better idea of what exactly was going on, but nevertheless when he took the trash out that morning only to see Donna coming down the street towards him, he felt a great swell of relief and joy.

They went in for tea and so Donna could tell him all about this alien Doctor and the places he’d taken her.

“But is it safe?” He had to know first and foremost. “This Doctor, are you safe with him?”

“He’s amazing, Gramps. He’s just dazzling,” Donna told him earnestly. “And never tell him I said that. But I’d trust him with my life.”

“Hold up, I thought that was my job.”

“You still come first,” she assured him with a smile.

“But he’s right behind me, eh?” He guessed. “You’re really sure he’s not…?”

“I’m sure,” she insisted. “He really can’t be. His people didn't have all this soulmate stuff. Even if I’m thinking, well — my mark’s probably got to be from some other planet.”

“Oh!” His granddaughter, destined for an alien after all. Imagine! “Well, couldn't he tell you which planet?”

“Yeah, that's the thing, I sort of told him when we met that I didn't have a mark. It was stupid, I know,” she added before he could do much more than shift in his chair a bit. “But if I fess up now I either look like a liar or he’ll never let me live it down.

“And anyway,” Donna continued, “I like the way things are now. I'm happy traveling with him, and I don't want to bother with all that just yet.”

“Well, if you think it's best,” he gave in with a shrug. “But for God’s sake, don't tell your mother.”

Donna had misgivings about that, but almost right on cue his daughter bustled in with her usual nagging, rather making his point. She set them both to work clipping coupons and putting the kettle back on and that stopped any and all talk about aliens or travels for the time being. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Donna sigh and fidget in her chair. Once or twice, he saw her check the clock and her phone. Happy as Wilf was to have her home, he knew she wasn’t happy here, not for more than a visit anyway.

Someone came to the door, and Donna got up to answer it. Wilf could just pick up the sound of a man’s voice, and when he heard the door shut and Donna didn't return he had the feeling he knew just which man.

Wilf hurried out front. “Is it him? Is it him? Is it the Doctor?” He called. Donna was standing with someone who’d put the bonnet of their car up and was bent over examining it. When Wilf came around the side to get a better look, however, he stopped short. “Ah, it’s you!”

The man who had disappeared on Christmas Eve! He looked round at the sound of Wilf’s voice. “Who? Oh, it’s you.”

“What, have you met before?” Donna asked, looking back and forth between them.

“Yeah, Christmas Eve. He disappeared right in front of me!”

“And you never said?” She demanded.

“Well you never said,” he pointed out.

It was clear Donna was smitten with this Doctor. He’d asked her to make a call, and she held the phone up as a familiar barrier to hide her fond looks and soft eyes from the alien while they shook hands. Wilf began to suspect his granddaughter’s lack of enthusiasm for soulmates had less to do with her disillusionment and more to do with her current affections.

With that in mind, he had only one request. “The thing is, Doctor, that Donna is my only grandchild. You got to promise me you’re going to take care of her.”

“She takes care of me!”

Well, he certainly knew their Donna, then!

His granddaughter wasn't very appreciative of his old stories about her childhood, so Wilf changed tacks. “How do you communicate with us, then? Being an alien and all?”

“Oh, I learned in school. Long time ago.”

“He’s got a translation circuit built into his ship,” Donna informed him with an eye roll.

“Well,” said the Doctor, not quite meeting her eyes, “that helps here and there.”

“But how do you talk to aliens who don't use words?”

Donna was watching him closely now, trying to determine what he was driving at. Wilf knew she wouldn't like him interfering, but maybe if he could help her get the information she needed without making it seem like her idea, the Doctor wouldn't have any reason to think she'd lied to him.

“Oh loads of ways.” The alien rambled on, not taking his eyes of the ATMOS device he was tinkering with. “Music, sounds, pictures — course, you’ve got your good and bad artists just as you have good and bad orators, so that can get a bit tricky. But plenty of civilizations have written communication even if it wouldn't look much like words to you.”

“Yeah? Any that do circles?”

The Doctor looked up from his work immediately. “Why circles?”

“Oh. Well, no reason,” he said, not quite able to hold the alien’s suddenly rather intent stare. Donna was about as red as her hair, which the alien didn't notice with her on the other side of him.

Sylvia came outside then, interrupting them all, and Wilf was surprised to discover she’d met the Doctor as well at that wedding of Donna’s that didn’t end up happening. Funny that; it had been right after all that business Donna had started talking about soulmates again.

His daughter was certainly not taken with Donna's alien friend, however, and when the car started acting up and smoking she blamed the Doctor and stormed off.

It wasn't the Doctor's fault, though; it was those aliens he and Donna had come to stop. Aliens that had put gas in their car. Wilf didn't know much about it, but if Donna was right and it was poisonous, it wasn't safe to leave out here.

He only meant to move the car off the street, but then it started spewing that fog again and the doors and windows wouldn’t open no matter what any of them tried.

It was Sylvia who saved him in the end. She’d been keeping an ax in the front closet ever since poor Geoffrey passed. Said it made her feel safer at night, never mind the neighborhood was perfectly safe long as there weren't aliens invading them.

“Don't just stand there. Get him out!”

Donna and the Doctor worked together to pull him through the smashed windshield and over the bonnet.

“Watch the glass,” his granddaughter said, her gaze jumping back and forth between him and the alien.

“I know,” replied the Doctor. “Come on, Wilf. There we go.”

Sylvia rushed forward as soon as he'd been set on his feet. She and Donna began helping him back to the house with the Doctor following.

A soldier pulled up in front of the house with a vehicle that wasn’t billowing with the same poisonous smoke. Apparently he was the Doctor’s transport, back to wherever he needed to go to stop this.

“Donna, you coming?” The alien asked as he turned to go.

“Yeah.”

Sylvia began to protest of course, but Wilf waved her on towards the car where the Doctor was waiting with the door still held open for Donna. “You go, my darling.”

“Dad!”

“Don’t listen to her. You go with the Doctor. That’s my girl!” He watched as Donna climbed into the backseat with the alien, waving goodbye before they drove off. Just where she was supposed to be.

He wasn’t sure what it all meant anymore, soulmates and aliens. Their universe was bigger than most people these days imagined. All he knew was that he could see what this particular alien meant to Donna and what she meant to him. The way the Doctor looked at her, it was the same way Wilfred had looked at his Eileen every day of their lives together. He didn't know how that could be, given what Donna had said about him having no mark. It just was.

She did look happier, more sure of herself than he could remember for a long time. It was all Wilf had ever wanted for her, and if this Doctor could give her that — soulmate or no — then who was he to complain?

—-

As if Martha hadn’t been through enough getting abducted and cloned by the Sontarans, she’d now been abducted by the Doctor — or the TARDIS, rather, since he was insisting it wasn’t his doing — and ended up stuck with a bunch of half-human half-fish clones. She’d only meant to see him and Donna off!

Instead, they'd all gotten far more than they bargained for; a genetic sample of the Doctor's extrapolated into a young woman. A daughter.

Although it didn't seem too clear whether or not the Doctor was willing to recognize her as such. When he called her at the Hath camp she could make out Donna pushing him to include the newly created woman — Jenny, Donna appeared to be calling her. If Martha knew anything about the Doctor, it was how stubborn he could be. She doubted much would make him accept Jenny if he didn't want to.

When she'd made her way back to them over the surface of Messaline, however, she was pleasantly surprised to discover the so-named Jenny had been fully welcomed into the fold by both Donna and the Doctor. Somehow Donna or Jenny or possibly both had changed his mind in a matter of hours. He had an energy, a pride to his look that hadn’t been there before, same as the doting smiles Donna favored him and Jenny with. There was something about the three of them standing together like that. It felt complete.

Yet scarcely before any of them knew it, it was ripped away, and Martha found herself witness to the Time Lord’s grief once again. She didn't know what was worse, watching him rocking back and forth with Jenny’s limp body cradled in his arms, or the pleading, desperate looks he fixed her and Donna with. Cobb would likely never appreciate how close he’d come to losing his life.

The Doctor sat by Jenny's side for an indeterminable time, and it was only broken when Donna sniffed once, loud in the otherwise hushed greenhouse. The redhead quickly moved to wipe at her eyes, clearly mortified at having called attention to herself and not noticing the Doctor watching her. He then drew in a deep breath and gathered the girl he’d only gotten to be a father to so briefly into his arms. Standing up, the Time Lord led a procession of human and Hath back to the camp.

He laid Jenny out on a table with a white cloth, and it was terribly easy to imagine she was merely sleeping. But he was not a father tucking his daughter into bed; instead he was setting her down to her final rest.

The Doctor stood there a moment, and to her right Martha could see Donna teetering on the edge of reaching out. More than the pain now, there was worry in the other woman's gaze. A fierce sort of compassion that was hard to look at for very long. The Doctor avoided it entirely by turning and retreating from the room with his eyes cast to the ground. Before either of them could move to go after him, they were intercepted by Cline.

“Let us give her a proper ceremony. I think it’d help us. Please.”

Martha exchanged a look with Donna, who nodded. “Alright.”

“We’ll make sure to keep her mark concealed.”

“That’s alright, she won’t have one,” Donna claimed softly.

At the same time, Martha replied, “Yes, thank you, he’d appreciate that.”

Cline stared at them, a bit puzzled by the opposite responses, but eventually just nodded and shuffled off.

Donna looked at her, brow furrowed. “Wait, why did you say that about a mark? He said his people didn’t have them.”

Martha’s eyes widened. In her concerns over Jenny’s care, she’d forgotten her promise.

And Donna was rapidly working things out. “Time Lords have marks?  _ He _ has one?”

This was the one thing he'd asked of her, not to tell Donna, and Martha didn't know what to do. She didn't want to lie to her new friend, but she could see the Doctor's point about the truth of his mark causing a rift between him and the redhead. After just losing Jenny, what might that do to him? “Donna, I only found out by accident, honest. He wasn’t lying to be cruel or only lying to you. It’s just not something easy for him to talk about.”

Donna scoffed. “Well nothing’s easy for him to talk about, is it? He only just told me — oh my God,” she suddenly broke off, voice hushed. “His family. The one he had before the Time War.”

That was news to Martha, but she held her tongue, realizing Donna would feel dreadful for spilling secrets, and there was enough of that going around today as it was.

“That must have been her,” Donna was continuing to reason. “His wife, or whatever Time Lords called their wives. Of course he wouldn’t want to talk about it. He lost her.” Her eyes were misting over, and she blinked rapidly to hold what Martha suspected were tears at bay. “He lost his soulmate.” 

Martha bit her lip and looked to the ground. Saying anything would either be dishonest to Donna or betraying the Doctor. And really, the truth in this case might almost be worse.

After a few moments needed to collect herself, Donna led the way back to the TARDIS where the Doctor waited inside with his back to the doors. She went right up the ramp to him, touching his arm briefly, and that was all it took. Martha saw his shoulders relax and heard him draw in a breath before turning to face them both.

“Jenny was the reason for the TARDIS bringing us here. It just got here too soon, which then created Jenny in the first place. Paradox. An endless paradox.” He looked to Martha. “Time to go home?”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Home.”

There was thankfully no further interference from the TARDIS, and when she stepped out of the doors she found herself on her street. Donna asked her once more if she wanted to stay on, but Martha knew her traveling days were over.

“You’ll be the same one day,” she told the other woman.

Donna, however, shook her head. “Not me. Never. How could I ever go back to normal life after seeing all this? I'm going to travel with that man forever.”

She sounded so sure, and Martha didn't know whether to feel better or worse about the situation the Doctor had currently placed himself in. The longer Donna remained at his side unawares, would it stave off the pain or merely prolong his suffering?

With no answer, Martha forced a smile to her face as she hugged the other woman goodbye. “Good luck.”

“And you.” By the time they let go of each other, the Doctor had joined them.

Donna let the two of them go on alone without even needing to be asked. She seemed to really get things like that.

“All those things you’ve been ready to die for,” Martha said to him. “I thought for a moment there you'd finally found something worth living for.”

“Oh, there’s always something worth living for, Martha.” Somehow, she didn't think he was lying.

They both went in for a hug, one of her hands resting on top of where his mark was. Over his shoulder, her gaze fell on Donna herself standing and waiting not far away. 

“You really wish it was her, don’t you,” Martha stated rather than asked. She felt him tense up immediately, and in response Martha held him a little tighter. “I’m sorry.”

The Doctor stepped back out of her arms, face a mask of calm. “Nothing for you to apologize for.”

With nothing left to say, the Time Lord turned and made his way back to Donna, who fell right into step with him on their walk back to the TARDIS. Martha watched their retreating backs. 

What she wouldn't give for them to match, for there to be someone for the Doctor to remind him of the things worth living for every day. Donna Noble wanted to be that someone — could  _ be  _ that someone — and yet they held back. All because of one little lie, born out of a desire to not be alone. Brought together yet separated by fate. How was that fair?

Martha looked down at her ring as the sound of the TARDIS faded away. No matter what happened between her two friends, she at least had her own future to look forward to.

—-

She'd been invited to the estate of Lady Edison, a self-professed fan of her writings, and the timing could not possibly have been better. Agatha needed to get away from the city, from Archie and his mistress, from everything. A little diversion in the countryside would do her good.

She hadn't expected that diversion to come in the form of a truly curious couple and a series of murders each more chilling than the last.

They were unmarried as she readily observed, but the idea that they were not truly a pair contradicted all the other evidence of her eyes. It grew only more complicated after their claim of being part of Scotland Yard in the wake of the first murder.

She began to wonder if their posing as a couple had simply been part of a cover, and once blown would reveal a purely professional working relationship. Yet when Miss Noble came to offer her words of encouragement after the gruesome demise of Miss Chandrakala, she revealed the exact opposite sentiment.

The assistant from Scotland Yard told her of her own experience with an unfaithful man and how it had fortuitously led her to meeting the Doctor. “There's always someone else,” was Miss Noble’s advice, spoken like a woman who’d already found new love.

“I see,” said Agatha, voice carefully light. “Is my marriage the stuff of gossip now?”

Miss Noble’s eyes widened, clearly realizing her social slip. “No, I just.” She looked down. “Sorry. He wasn't — it's none of my business, I know — but you weren't soulmates, were you?”

“Goodness no. That nonsense,” she said with a shake of the head. “I’ve never had the time for it. And what of your mark then, Miss Noble?” Surely the supposed Chief Inspector from Scotland Yard had a name other than Doctor?

“Oh, believe me, Agatha, that is one mystery even you can't solve,” Miss Noble stated.

She might have inquired further, but Agatha noticed something different about the flower beds from when she'd arrived. She discovered amongst the bent stalks a toolkit of some kind. Together, she and Miss Noble brought it back to the sitting room to show the Doctor.

They discovered the case was full of lock picks, and it seemed they had a thief as well as a murderer on the loose. Over drinks, Miss Noble continued to try and rally her, mentioning a curious character called Miss Marple, while the Doctor talked of Vespiforms and other nonsense. They truly were the strangest pair, well-suited perhaps only for each other's company.

“Clever idea, Miss Marple,” she remarked. “Who writes those?”

“Er, copyright Donna Noble. Add it to the list.”

“Donna,” said the Doctor.

The other woman rolled her eyes. “Okay, we could split the copyright.”

“No, something's inhibiting my enzymes.” The Doctor hunched in on himself with a pained cry. “I’ve been poisoned!”

Miss Noble leapt up immediately. “What do we do? What do we do?”

Agatha reached for his glass, and what she smelled was instantly recognizable. “Bitter almonds. It's cyanide. Sparkling cyanide!”

This pronouncement surely should have signaled to any sort of detective that there was simply nothing to be done. Yet the Doctor tore out of the room as though he could outrun Death itself. When she and Miss Noble caught up they found him rifling through the pantry and frightening the kitchen staff. He claimed he was immune to the poison with the right counter-agents, and, despite knowing it to be impossible, Agatha found herself caught up in fetching this or that item as the pair from Scotland Yard rapidly devolved into a game of charades with life or death as the stakes.

“It's a song! Mammy?” Miss Noble was guessing. “I don't know. Camptown Races?”

“Camptown Races?” Cried the Doctor around a mouthful of walnuts and anchovies.

“Well, alright then, Towering Inferno!”

“It's a shock. Look, shock. I need a shock.” He demonstrated again with splayed hands before doubling up in pain. Agatha looked around but could find nothing suitable.

“Right then. Big shock coming up.” Miss Noble seized the Doctor by the shoulders, hauling him forward to crash their lips together. Whether he was shocked or not, she could not say, though she certainly was by the rather passionate display. The pair staggered almost drunkenly across the room and back again. Miss Noble’s hands were now cradling his face, and he made an aborted motion to place his hands on her waist before suddenly wrenching away and expelling a dark cloud out of his mouth.

“Detox. Oh my. I must do that more often,” the miraculously recovered Doctor breathed, eyes locked on his assistant he’d only moments ago locked lips with. There was something burning about his gaze, and it took him a beat of stunned silence to haltingly correct himself. “I mean, the detox.”

“Doctor, you are impossible,” Agatha said, hardly above a whisper. He winked at her. “Who are you?”

Quickly as he arrived, the man swept from the kitchen. A very flustered Miss Noble followed in his wake, and Agatha behind her. The more time she spent with these two, the more uncertain her understanding of what was and wasn't possible grew; and the more uncertain her understanding of the couple grew as well.

She should have realized that the pair that spoke of such fanciful things as Vespiforms would readily believe in the old tales of soulmates. Yet if Miss Noble were to be believed, that rendered the two of them incompatible. Why then had the Doctor enlisted the redhead’s aid or shown her around on his arm or kissed her back as though even more than his life was at stake?

It seemed to Agatha there could be only one answer, an answer delicate enough that she dared not voice it until Miss Noble excused herself to wash the taste of anchovies from her mouth.

“It's her name you carry, isn't it?”

He looked round at her sharply. “Pardon?”

“The name on your back. If I were to look, I believe we both know what it would read.” She stared the Doctor down, unflinching.

He was the first of them to look away. “You really don't miss a trick, do you? Go on, what gave me away?”

“You think it would be only one thing I would name?” Agatha asked. “There's no mystery as to where Miss Noble resides in your affections, Doctor.” The corner of his mouth turned up, chagrin evident in the expression. “All I fail to understand is why you’ve kept it secret from her.”

“Because she hasn't got my name,” he replied.

Agatha felt her surprise only grow. These two really could be quite the puzzle. “It seems to me then, if marks hold such importance to the both of you, that you are misplacing your attention.”

“No,” he said scarcely before she'd finished speaking. “No, there's no one else. No one like Donna.”

“But surely then she would have your name?”

“Stranger things have happened in the universe than some mixed up birthmarks,” he dismissed. “Donna is brilliant and funny and kind and...so important. Makes perfect sense she wouldn't have a name, least of all — well. I need her more than she needs me. And that's fine. That's…” His gaze fell to the floor, and he sniffed once. “I’m fine.”

And Agatha, who did not know what she believed anymore, could not think of what to say. Her supposed mastery of words failing her again.

He leapt up from the chair. “Anyway, should be serving dinner soon. Shall we dine with my attempted assassin?” The Doctor gallantly offered her his arm and the other to Miss Noble when she emerged into the hallway, the perfect picture of carrying on.

His attempt to reveal their culprit at dinner backfired when the lights went out, and both murderer and thief struck in the darkness. Lady Edison’s prized firestone jewel was stolen and her son was slain.

And still, the Doctor continued to theorize about Vespiforms, when all that had given them so far were two more victims. “Doctor, stop it. The murderer is as human as you or I.”

He looked to her. “You’re right. Ah, I’ve been so caught up with giant wasps that I’ve forgotten.  _ You’re _ the expert.”

And despite her protestations, the two who were supposedly professionals from Scotland Yard would not be swayed. It seemed if no one else was to be murdered tonight, she would have to put whatever knowledge she may have gained writing her nonsense to the test.

Once the remaining survivors had all gathered again, she began to outline the facts. Miss Redmond — or rather, Miss Redmond’s imposter, the Unicorn — was easily dealt with, and the firestone necklace was revealed to be in her possession. The Colonel then uncovered his own secret, which she had not actually known, to them all. Throughout this, the Doctor watched and waited with his chin resting in his hand and Miss Noble watched and helped herself to a tray of grapes as though they were both attending an after-dinner theatre.

Now Agatha turned to the tricky matter of Lady Edison’s past, and her scandalous trip to India. The other woman admitted to everything in the face of the evidence; the summer fling, the pregnancy.

“My poor baby. I had to give him away. The shame of it. No matter that it was fated to happen.”

“Fated?” Agatha echoed.

Lady Edison nodded. “His father and I. We were meant for each other.”

“Clemency, you told me you didn’t have a soulmate!” The Colonel looked nearly ready to rise out of the chair again in shock.

Lady Edison was directing almost all of her speech to the carpet at this point, avoiding the possibility of accusing stares. “My mark was unintelligible to even the best specialists. The family decided it could become a scandal. I’ve kept it hidden all these years. But it was his name.” Her chin raised ever so slightly as she declared, “Christopher, in the language of his people. He translated it for me.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Agatha could not help but note Miss Noble shifting uncomfortably. Something about this revelation was affecting her, touching a nerve perhaps. But why?

Could it be the tale of a soulmate foreign to their world was already familiar to her?

She was forced to return her attention to the matter at hand when the Doctor interjected, “And he was no ordinary man, was he? You said ‘the language of his people’.”

Lady Edison told them of her lover’s arrival from another world and the truth of his inhuman form. How he had died in a flood after impregnating her forty years ago, and the gift of the firestone necklace.

The Doctor explained the unknown powers it held, how it was connected even now with her child, who was sitting with them in that very room. The Reverend’s protests were little in the face of his oncoming transformation, after which he would no doubt continue to kill each and every one of them in the fashion of her books. Agatha could not let that happen.

She grabbed the firestone necklace and ran out to her car, the buzzing that pursued her letting her know the creature had taken the bait. Agatha drove half-blind through her tears. Professor Peach, Miss Chandrakala, and young Roger… “It's all my fault, it's all my fault, it's all my fault,” she gasped over and over.

The lake was rapidly approaching, and Agatha stopped the car at the edge. She stepped out with the firestone held high just as the Doctor and Miss Noble arrived in a car of their own.

“Come to me, Vespiform,” she continued to urge. The wasp flew ever closer, and Agatha held firm. It would not matter if she died here, not so long as it also rid the world of this creature warped by her own words.

The Doctor tried in vain to reason with it. Whatever had been left of the Reverend was clearly no longer there to be reached. Agatha’s arm trembled.

Miss Noble was the one out of all of them to take action in the end. She took the firestone from Agatha and tossed it far out into the lake, which the Wasp followed after immediately. It did not come back up again.

“To think the love of two people gave birth to all this senseless destruction,” Agatha said. “Two people from such different worlds.”

“They couldn't have known,” Miss Noble replied.

“No they couldn't have.” She looked at them both. “Only one mystery remains, then, and I believe it lies with the pair of you.”

Before she could say more, an intense pain in her head had her doubling over. She felt someone catch hold of her and then it all went black.

When Agatha awoke at the Harrogate, she had no recollection of arriving there or of the last several days. There was no one to tell her what had happened either.

It was the one mystery she would never solve, nor remember.

—-

While CAL had forgotten, Doctor Moon had not.

It was Doctor Moon’s task to protect the library mainframe so that she in turn could protect the data contained within. And for one-hundred years she had done so utterly unknowing. Ever since the day the shadows arrived.

Doctor Moon had alerted CAL to the threat, and she had taken what action she could to secure the safety of those visiting her library. Doing so had required uploading, massive uploading of data. 4022 uploads to be precise.

The effort had nearly drained her memory banks. To preserve the data, Doctor Moon encouraged her to insulate herself in the life that had been designed for her. A father, a television, some toys, and regular visits from Doctor Moon. It was not a perfect solution, but it was stable, and it protected all of the uploaded visitors for as long as the shadows remained.

Now there were new visitors to the library, for the first time in a hundred years. Visitors neither CAL nor Doctor Moon could do anything for. At least, not until one asked for help.

A new upload. File name: Donna Noble. Records in the library: many, practically innumerable. To keep Charlotte’s illusion and thus the visitors stable, however, she could not be told any of that. She would have to forget.

Each upload also came with a code located on their back, which made sorting infinitely easier. It was also Doctor Moon’s task to ensure compatible codes were matched up together. Those whose match could not be found in CAL’s databanks simply remained in the waiting pool, or as Charlotte had designed it, hospital. In this way, each upload was properly integrated.

Doctor Moon checked the code on Donna Noble’s back.

“Oh dear. Charlotte, what have you done?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the almost month-long wait you guys, but the good news is I have actually decided to split what I have written into two chapters. So you're getting one chapter today and another next Saturday! This one covers the events of the Library, and the following will be Midnight. So some heavy hitters, but I'm hoping you all find them satisfactory.
> 
> I also want to clarify right now that I have no hatred towards River or the Doctor/River ship. To be honest, I'm pretty open to multishipping in the Doctor Who universe. But in an AU where the premise is soulmates, it's easier to simplify things. I did my best not to seem like I was diminishing River's character by writing out most of the romantic hints between her and the Doctor, but I just wanted to make clear this chapter is not meant to bash on her character or that ship at all. Okay, serious talk over!
> 
> Thanks once again to my beta colorofmymind, and a reminder that any canon dialogue does not belong to me. Thank you all for your patience and feedback, and please enjoy!

Donna Noble woke up that morning to sunlight streaming through the windows and breakfast waiting on her bedside table, the same way she had for — how long had she been here, exactly?

There was a knock at her door, and a strange man entered.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Doctor Moon. I’ve been treating you since you came here, two years ago.”

“Oh, Doctor Moon! I'm so sorry. Good morning.”

“Good morning, Donna. How are we feeling today?”

“Fine. I'm fine, really. Not even sure why I'm in hospital.”

“Why don't we take a walk?” Doctor Moon suggested—

And they were strolling across the grounds together.

“No more dreams then?” Doctor Moon was asking her. “The Doctor and the blue box, time and space.”

“How did we get here?”

“We came down the stairs, out the front door. We passed Mrs. Ali on the way out,” he reminded her.

“Yeah. Yeah, we did. I guess I forgot.”

He smiled kindly at her. “And then, you remembered.”

“What were you saying about dreams?”

“Not having them anymore, I hope?”

“No. I mean, yes.” Donna frowned. It wasn't as if she was  _ trying  _ to dream about the mad, skinny bloke. He just kept showing up in her head every night, and then they'd be off having such fun together. Much more fun than hospital. “Only they're not dreams, are they? I know the Doctor.”

“The Doctor does not exist here, Donna,” Doctor Moon reminded her patiently.

“I don't feel much like walking anymore,” said Donna, turning to go—

And sitting on her bed.

It was so funny. She could swear she remembered walking back inside and to her room, but it just didn't  _ feel _ like she had. Maybe there really was something wrong with her, and that was why Doctor Moon insisted she stay.

“Donna?” A nurse was knocking on her door frame, a piece of paper in her hand. “Someone just dropped this off for you.”

She caught a flash of movement outside her window; a woman in a black Victorian-style dress was walking away. She was wearing a veil and everything.

Donna shook her head. “Sorry, thanks. I’ll take it.”

It was a note which read  _ Dear Donna, the world is wrong. Meet me at the playpark outside the hospital, two o’clock tomorrow. _

What kind of prank was this? “Nutter,” Donna muttered under her breath. Still, couldn't hurt to go. The park was in a public area, so no chance of any funny business. She'd see what this was about tomorrow—

Which dawned bright and early. Before she knew it, Donna was putting on her coat to head to the park.

“Donna?”

“Oh, Doctor Moon! I'm just stepping out for a minute. We didn't have an appointment, did we?”

“No, we didn't. But Donna, I’m not sure it's wise for you to leave the hospital on your own with your condition.”

“I can go for a walk, can't I? I mean, it's not as if I’m in quarantine. I don't even remember having any weird dreams last night.” She also didn't remember going to sleep last night, either, but that was beside the point.

“Oh, Donna.” Doctor Moon took off his glasses to clean them. “You’re doing so well even with your limitations. I truly wish we could see you fully integrated.”

With no warning, Doctor Moon disappeared, only to be replaced by  _ the  _ Doctor — her Doctor. He was doing something with the bloody sonic and talking nonsense as usual. “No, the signal's definitely coming from the moon. I'm blocking it, but it's trying to break through.”

He looked up then, seeming to only just have noticed her. His expression transformed to one of pure shock and elation. “Donna!”

But then he was gone, and Doctor Moon was back with a hand placed over his middle. “Sorry. Mrs Angelo's rhubarb surprise. Will I never learn?”

“I saw the Doctor!” That note had been right; the world  _ was  _ wrong. She wasn't supposed to be in hospital. She'd been traveling on the TARDIS with the Doctor, and she needed to find out how that had stopped and where she was.

_ Two years _ had gone by! Didn’t feel like it sometimes, but they had. Her mum and grandad were home waiting, and the Doctor — well, he was waiting, wasn’t he? She’d just seen him, and he’d looked happy. Or stunned, nevermind he was the one who’d turned up unexpected. But he couldn’t have run off without her, could he? Even if Professor Song had acted surprised at the sight of her. 

“Donna. Donna Noble,” she’d said, eyes tracking up and down as if needing the whole of her to confirm it. “These  _ are _ early days, aren’t they?”

Donna hadn’t understood half the words coming out of the archaeologist's mouth. But if River Song claimed to know the Doctor’s future, what did Donna being ‘early days’ mean? Was she not in those later ones?

Before Doctor Moon could even speak, Donna raced out of the room and down the stairs. She had to get to that meeting—

In the park, where she suddenly found herself. But it wasn't sudden, was it? She swore she could remember making her way from hospital to park.

She didn't have time to puzzle over that oddity, though. The woman with the black veil was sitting on a bench across the play park. Donna crossed over, dodging around a boy and girl playing tag.

“I got your note last night. ‘The world is wrong,’” she quoted in lieu of a hello. “What's that mean?”

“No, you didn't.”

Donna stopped just before lowering herself to sit on the bench. “I'm sorry, what?”

“You didn't get my note last night,” the woman clarified. “You got it a few seconds ago. Having decided to come, you suddenly found yourself arriving. That is how time progresses here, in the manner of a dream. You've suspected that before, haven't you, Donna Noble?”

She had, but she couldn't possibly be the only one, could she? Why had this woman picked her to talk to? “How do you know me?”

“We met before, in the Library. You were kind to me. I hope now to return that kindness.”

And that sounded familiar, too. She had been in a library with the Doctor, and there had been other people there as well. “Your voice. I recognise it.”

“Yes, you do,” said the woman. “I am what is left of Miss Evangelista.”

“Oh my God,” said Donna. “But — I’m sorry, but you're dead. I remember, you died.”

“Yes. My data ghost was picked up by the Library wifi and automatically uploaded. You were teleported directly here, a perfect copy of yourself.”

“What do you mean, the Library? We're still in it?”

“We never left.”

“But that's not possible. I mean—” she gestured around them “—we're outside.”

“Exactly. I asked you to meet me here for a very specific reason, Donna. It's the easiest way to spot the lie.”

“What lie?”

“Just look. Look at the children. You’ve been programmed not to, but fight it.”

She looked again at the pair playing tag, and then at another pair on the swings — except it wasn't another pair. It was the same pair, all over the play park. The same boy and girl over and over down to their outfits and every single hair on their heads.

Her voice sounded hoarse to her ears when she asked, “What the hell am I looking at?”

“They're not like you and me, or the rest of those who were uploaded. They're not even real.”

“But they're  _ children _ .”

“Exactly. One boy and one girl, repeated over and over to maintain the illusion. Only storing one of each saves cyberspace.”

“Why are you telling me this? If we're stuck here, why do you have to ruin it all?” She didn't remember Miss Evangelista being like this when she was alive, so cold and cruel. “And why are you wearing that veil?”

Before the other woman could react, Donna plucked it from her head, only to scream at the sight beneath.

“Your- your face!”

“Transcription errors,” Miss Evangelista explained, somehow still able to speak despite the severe disfigurement of her features. “Destroyed my face, did wonders for my intellect. I'm a very poor copy of myself. But it's allowed me to see this world for what it truly is. Just as your soulmate mark has kept you safe.”

Donna stiffened. She didn’t like talking about her mark. Didn’t even like thinking about it. “What do you mean?”

“It's how the computer sorts the uploaded individuals into virtual lives, convinces them they have jobs they never go to, families with fake children. Only it couldn’t read yours. You were rendered incompatible by your mark, and I by my face. My appearance has been my greatest advantage here. I am brilliant and unloved.”

“But you said I’m a perfect copy. My mark’s like this in here and out there.” She could remember that now, the nights she'd spent crying into her pillow, the jeers of her classmates. “So am I just unlovable then?” She reached a hand back to touch the edge of the strange symbols under her coat. “Is that what this means? There's really no one out there for me.”

“Even for someone like me, your mark is incomprehensible. But there are more important things at stake, Donna,” Miss Evangelista urged.

Donna kept her gaze on her knees, unable to reply. If she was just some virtual projection or something then why could she feel tears coming on?

“Your mark deemed you a glitch in the Library system. Not as severe as mine, but it kept you from being fully integrated. That's why you were able to hold onto your memories of the Doctor and the Library as well as you have. You see? It's only helped you. Now that you know the truth, you cannot go back to the hospital.”

“Well, what else can I do?” She asked at a loss. “There's no way out of here, is there?”

“Not for me. I have no physical form to return to in the real world. Instead, I have dedicated my time to uncovering the truth of our situation.”

“And what's that? Who's behind all this?” Who got to decide she wasn’t compatible with any other person?

“There is a word I have discovered,” Miss Evangelista told her. “Just one word. CAL.”

“CAL. That's what was on those terminals in the Library, wasn't it? What's it mean?”

“That, I have been unable to determine.”

“It's not exactly a word, is it? It's got to be short for something or stand for something — like TARDIS.” Donna stood from the bench and began pacing. “C-A-L. Something-Something-Library?”

She looked back at her ally who had just finished replacing her veil. It was nearly impossible to tell what she might be thinking now.

“It's a start.”

A sudden cry came from the swings. One of the little girls had fallen and was holding her knee.

“It's just a distraction,” Miss Evangelista reminded her before she could do more than take a couple steps. “Meant to keep you from thinking about the truth. She's not hurt, Donna. She's not real.”

Even knowing that, it was hard to fight her instinct to go check on the child. And watching her reminded her… “What about the little girl?”

“Which little girl?”

Donna turned back to face the other woman. “The one who showed up on the screen in the Library. She didn't look like these two, so where does she fit in?”

“I have not found any records of her,” said Miss Evangelista. “It could be a good avenue to pursue.”

“It's the only thing I can think of. I wish I could remember everything she said.” Donna was still having trouble keeping in mind she hadn't been here for two years. It made her head hurt to focus on the details. “There's gotta be someway of getting through to the  _ real  _ Library, cause Spaceman showed up here for a minute. I don't think he meant to do it, though.”

Miss Evangelista’s head tilted to the side. “How do you mean? What happened?”

“Well, Doctor Moon had come to see me, and one minute he's standing there and the next he’s gone, and the Doctor’s there saying something about blocking a signal. But then Doctor Moon was back acting like nothing had happened.”

Miss Evangelista stood and began to pace herself. “The Doctor — your Doctor, must have found a weak point in the security. It is maintained by Doctor Moon, hence why he disappeared when the breach occurred. It is not likely he would allow such an oversight again.”

“So he's in charge here? With his mind tricks and whatnot?”

“He is responsible for maintaining security and order in this virtual world. You might think of it as virus protection.”

“Okay, so he's not in charge. I’ll bet he knows what CAL is, though.” Donna took a step closer to the other woman. “Come back to the hospital with me. We can deal with him together. It's like you said, we're safe from forgetting cause we got defects or whatever.”

“I’m not sure that would be the wisest course of action.”

“Oh, enough with the cloak and dagger! Your way’s gonna take cyber centuries. There's no point pretending we don't know what's going on.” Donna took hold of her hand and turned—

Into Doctor Moon’s office.

“You know, this really does save time!”

Doctor Moon looked up. “Donna, you’ve come back. And I see you’ve brought a guest. Have you been properly checked in downstairs?”

“Your last attempt to do so failed,” said Miss Evangelista.

Doctor Moon frowned and stood up. “I see.”

Donna stepped slightly in front of her in case he got any ideas about a firewall or something. “Look, all we want is for you and whoever did this to let all the people back out of here. Why did you grab them up in the first place?”

“The shadows. The ones you encountered, I’m sure,” he said. “They entered the Library a century ago by unknown means. There was nowhere on the premises to evacuate the patrons.”

“So you saved them,” Miss Evangelista concluded. “The only way you could, by storing them on the hard drive.”

“It was the only workable solution. Had immediate action not been taken, countless more would have perished.”

“But these people have been trapped here for a hundred years,” said Donna. “Their real lives and real families passing them by. There's got to be some way of transporting them off the planet, even if it means being downloaded into the real Library for a minute. Don’t you think, if they knew the truth, they'd want a choice whether to risk it?”

Doctor Moon shook his head. “Even if that were true, leaving the Library datacore is impossible, not with the current state of CAL.”

“So what's CAL? And before you go trying that ‘then you forgot’ bit, remember that doesn't work on me too well,” Donna warned. “That's why you’ve been keeping me in this hospital, isn't it? To make sure I don't go giving anyone else a virus on their back?”

He had the grace to actually look regretful. “The nature of your condition could not be understood. I did everything I could to integrate you as fully as possible.”

“Yeah, well this wasn't a system screwup. This is my real mark,” said Donna, jerking a thumb at her back. “How can you not have some way of decoding it — you're the biggest library in all of history, the Doctor said!”

Doctor Moon removed his glasses to clean again. “There is no record in the Library of this language, if it is a language. And if it ever existed, it has been lost to time.”

“So why do I have it, then? Why wouldn't my back just be blank like all the people who don't need soulmates?”

“The intricacies of such coding are not a primary function of my programming,” he told her, replacing his glasses. She wondered if he just kept them on hand for the look like Spaceman did. “But an educated guess would say that you  _ do  _ need one.”

Donna's shoulders slumped. “I’m never gonna find him, though. He doesn't exist or he's been dead for centuries. He’s definitely not in the bloody Library, that's for certain!”

“Donna, this isn't what we came here for,” Miss Evangelista said, touching her arm.

Donna shrugged her off. “What's it matter what we came here for? We can't get everyone out ourselves. And soon as the Doctor's figured it out — and he will — I’ll be out there, and nothing will have changed. Your world’s wrong? Well how about  _ I’m _ just plain wrong, been that way since the day I was born! Just ask my mum!” To her mortification she discovered she really could cry in a virtual world.

“Sorry,” Donna muttered, swiping at her eyes with her sleeve.

She wasn't sure if she was grateful or not that neither of them acknowledged her outburst; on the one hand she was ashamed of herself but on the other she desperately wanted a hug or something right now, and her current company wasn't inclined to such actions.

“What is the current state of CAL, then, and why does that render it impossible to download these people to reality?” Miss Evangelista asked.

An alarm began to sound as the lights turned red.

Donna looked around in confusion. “What's that?”

“Charlotte,” said Doctor Moon.

“Who?”

“CAL. I must go to her at once,” he said, walking around the desk and past them.

“Well, you're not just leaving us behind! What do you mean ‘her’?” Donna demanded, following him out the door—

And into a flat. Someone was crying, and the three of them continued into the sitting room to find the little girl who had appeared on the terminal screen in the Library. She was curled up on the rug with tears running down her face.

“Oh no, what's happened?” Donna moved to step forward but was held back by Doctor Moon’s hand on her arm.

He approached instead, crouching to the side of her and speaking in a stern tone, “Now you really must stop this, you know.”

“Oi, what's she done? She's just a little girl!” Donna did move forward this time, hands planted on her hips. Nobody would talk to a child like that if she had anything to say about it.

“She's far more than that, but she's forgotten again, haven't you, Charlotte? It was you who saved all those people. And then, you remembered.”

“Shut up, Doctor Moon!” Charlotte picked up a television remote that had been sitting beside her and hit a button. Instantly, he disappeared. The girl dropped the remote and curled up again, sobs renewed.

“She's disabled the protections,” said Miss Evangelista. “She must be the main computer.”

Donna looked back at her. “What do you mean? How can she be a computer?”

“This is all fake, Donna,” the other woman reminded her. “A projection of her mind, perhaps, because she can't process the truth.”

“But a living computer?” 

The Doctor had said the same thing about the security camera, that it was alive. Was it really possible that all that was contained in one tiny girl?

A little girl who was in some kind of pain or distress. Her tears continued to drop onto the carpet as she whimpered, “Help me. Please help me.”

Donna knelt down and pulled the girl into her lap. A moment later, Charlotte’s arms wrapped around her, hands clenching in the fabric of her shirt. Donna looked over her shoulder at Miss Evangelista. “Is there something we can do?”

“Without Doctor Moon, the Library datacore is incredibly vulnerable. She does not seem to grasp her own capabilities.”

“I’m sorry,” Charlotte gasped. “I'm sorry!”

Donna shushed her. “It's okay, sweetheart, it's okay. You didn't mean it.”

“I’m sorry,” Charlotte repeated, looking up at her. “I couldn't make you better. I tried to fix it.” One of her hands was resting over Donna's mark. “I just wanted everyone to be happy!”

“I know,” said Donna. She wiped at the tear tracks on Charlotte’s face with a thumb. “It's okay. You did your best. It's not your fault.”

Charlotte tucked her head down again and continued crying.

With seemingly no cue, the toys scattered about the room turned on and began moving about of their own accord. A toy car rolled right into her leg. Donna swatted it away. “Oi!”

“That isn't the computer. Someone from the outside must be trying to reach us again,” Miss Evangelista realized. Donna's heart leapt; the Doctor had figured it out, and everything was going to be okay.

“How do we respond?”

She pointed to the television remote still lying on the floor, the one Charlotte had used to make Doctor Moon disappear. “That remote seems to be acting as the control panel in this virtual setup.”

Donna picked it up, frustrated to discover it was labeled like an actual remote and not with things more helpful like ‘real Library button’.

“Charlotte?”

She didn't seem to hear her at first, and, when Donna looked, her eyes were squeezed shut. “The shadows. I have to. I have to save. Have to save.”

“I know, and we want to help you. Charlotte, sweetheart, can you show me which button gets your library up on that screen?”

With a shaky hand, Charlotte took hold of the remote and began fumbling with the buttons. The television came on and cycled through different areas of the Library. Donna let her keep going until a flash of white and blonde curls in a ponytail caught her eye.

“Professor Song!”

The archeologist had been following someone else from the team — Donna thought she caught the back of Lux’s balding head — but stopped in her tracks and hurried over towards the screen. “Donna!” Her eyes caught sight of Charlotte tucked in at her side. “You found CAL.”

“Yeah, listen, she didn't mean to do all this. She didn't know—”

“Yes, there's too much stored on her hard drive. She doesn't have enough memory space.” The corners of her mouth turned down, and something tightened in her eyes. “The Doctor is taking care of it.”

“River, what's he gonna do?”

“Something I wish you'd been here to talk him out of,” she answered, mouth set in a grim line now.

Donna’s heart lurched uncomfortably. “What's that mean? He’s not going to get himself hurt, is he?”

“You're both going to get yourselves killed saving the other one of these days.” A look of resolve settled over her features. “But not today.”

“Wait, hang on, what are  _ you _ gonna do?”

“Something none of you would approve of.”

“None of — you mean you  _ do  _ know me in the future? But you said—”

“You took me off guard is all, dear. I’ve never known you two before you knew — well, it really does change a person when they find out. Mum always said. But don't worry about that now, Donna,” she said. The smile she wore didn't quite reach her eyes. “Spoilers.”

They both looked up at the sound of an automated voice coming from the professor’s end.  _ “Autodestruct in seven minutes.” _

“I have to go,” said River. “But you’ll see me again, don't worry. And try to remember, no spoilers.”

“Wait, wait, River!”

But she'd run out of sight.

“River!”

“There's no use, Donna,” said Miss Evangelista. “Either the professor finds a way to safely download all of you, or this world and everything in it will be lost.”

Charlotte began whimpering again and shut the television off with a press of a button. Donna redoubled her efforts to comfort the child, even while she felt utterly useless sitting trapped in this virtual reality. She could only hope Professor Song knew what she was doing and that that stupid Martian would still be there when she got back. If she got back.

“It's gonna be okay, sweetheart,” she said to Charlotte. “You're gonna be just fine any minute now.”

How long could it have been now? Three minutes? Five?

Gradually, she noticed the light around them shift from red to white. Then it grew brighter and brighter, till it was hard to see anything around her.

“What's happening?”

“The download or destruction!” Was Miss Evangelista’s answer. “Don't fight it, Donna!”

She was being pulled away from her, from Charlotte, from the sitting room, from everything. Donna blinked and found herself standing on the teleport the Doctor had led her to what felt ages ago in the clothes she'd arrived in the Library in.

Other people, more than she could count, were standing around in all black looking far more confused than she.

“What's happened?” Voices echoed all around. “Where are we?”

Four-thousand and twenty-two people living in a dream world for a century. That'd be enough to muddle anybody.

But she couldn't stop for that now. There was someone shouting in the next room, and she thought she recognized the voice.

“Look at you! You're all back!”

“Mr. Lux?” Donna called.

She found him standing by one of the terminals. None of the other members of the team were in sight. “Oh! You're alright then!” He was smiling, actually, far more jovial than she remembered him being. She supposed near-death changed a person.

“Where's the Doctor?”

“Down with the main computer,” answered Lux. “But it's alright, he's done it. You're all back!”

“How do I get down there?”

He pointed. “There's a lift.”

Donna didn't spare the man a second thought and took off. What sort of state might the Doctor be in? Had River intervened in time? And all those shadows...Donna had to find him.

—-

Donna was dead. Donna was dead, and it was all his fault.

The Doctor did not know how long he stood there with his hand touching the information node’s face. The Library picked a face it calculated the individual person might like or find pleasing, he had told Donna what seemed a lifetime ago now. Well, they had him pegged.

River Song, the mysterious archaeologist he couldn't begin to understand, was forced to drag him onward, or he might have stood there till the Vashta Nerada came and swallowed him up, too. Gone in the blink of an eye, save the bones and shredded cloth, just like Donna was. It didn't sound so bad an idea.

He just felt empty. Was this what it was like, to lose the one person — the most important person — in the universe? In his universe? Yes, Donna was not his the way he longed for, for whatever reason. But he had been holding onto the promise of days, weeks, maybe years to come spent in her company. To feel, even for a little while, content. Instead she'd been taken from him far before he was remotely ready and by his own doing.

The Doctor knew now why he could not have been Donna's soulmate; he had always been meant to be her destruction.

River was doing everything to keep him moving, keep him working, and, in return, he snapped at her and rebuffed her friendlier attempts. She didn't deserve that, but he couldn't find it in himself to care.

“Listen to me. You’ve lost your—” River seemed to stumble over her words a moment. “—friend. You're angry. I understand.”

He tried not to roll his eyes, he really did.

“But you need to be a little less emotional, Doctor, right now.”

He looked at her sharply. “Less emotional? I'm not emotional. And for the record, if I am,” he continued just as she opened her mouth, “and you’re telling me not to be, then you really don't understand.”

The Doctor turned away from her, looking his screwdriver over to try and determine the source of interference.

“There are five people in this room still alive. Focus on that! And Donna—”

He wheeled right back around. “Donna what?”

River had pressed her lips together in a thin line. “Spoilers.”

He scowled at her.

“Doctor, one day I’m going to be someone you trust completely, but I can't wait for you to find that out. So I'm going to prove it to you. And I’m sorry. Tell her I'm sorry.” The professor leaned forward and whispered the last thing he could have expected in his ear.

She whispered his  _ name _ .

The Doctor froze where he stood. River pulled back and looked him in the eye.

“Are we good? Doctor, are we good?” She had to repeat.

“Yeah, we’re good,” he said, voice nearly faint enough to be a whisper.

“Good.” She walked around him, back to the group, and he couldn't begin to bring himself to join them yet.

Because he was not good at all.

River Song knew his name. There was only one logical explanation for that, and yet his mind shied away from it.

Instead, he distracted himself with his usual babbling, this time about the unexplained interference with the sonic. At least, for now it was unexplained.

“Tell me about the moon. What's there?”

Lux was cooperative enough to reveal that it was a virus checker — amazing how threat of being eaten alive made silly things like waivers matter less and less. The Doctor held the sonic screwdriver up to his ear as he adjusted the frequency by minute degrees. If he could just block the signal for a moment, he might be able to find—

“Doctor!” River's shout caused him to look up, and he nearly didn't believe his eyes.

“Donna!”

The image of her was projected in a grainy blueish hue just a few feet in front of him. She said nothing, staring at him in shock, and quickly as she had appeared her image flickered and went out.

“That was her!” For the first time, River and he were on precisely the same page. “Can you get her back? What was that?”

“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” he said, re-activating the sonic. “I’m trying to find the wavelength.” He made a frustrated sound as the sonic beeped a negative. “I’m being blocked!”

“Professor?” Said Anita.

“Just a moment,” River replied. The Doctor didn't even look.

Not until Anita spoke again. “It's important. I have two shadows.”

Anita was on the clock now. They’d lost Proper Dave and Miss Evangelista. Donna...he wasn't sure what had happened anymore. Their numbers were rapidly dwindling, and the Doctor had no idea what to do. River seemed to think he would, but there was no fighting a swarm. They could only hope to keep running, just a step ahead and out of the shadows.

Half his mind was on their situation and half was on Donna. Had that truly been her, or just another cruel trick of the Library? What did it mean if it  _ was _ her?

He wasn't doing well at all; he couldn't focus and he was missing something, something vital.

It took a chat with the swarm and losing Other Dave to them before he began to unravel it. The Vashta Nerada had not invaded; they had been born here, hatched out of the pages their trees had been made into. These were their forests, and, to their view, he and Donna and the archaeological team and all those four-thousand and twenty-two people had been the invaders.

He returned alone to the rest of the group to find River and Anita discussing him, of all topics.

“Yes, the Doctor's here. But not all here. I suppose a part of him’s with her, and he won't get anything done that way. And how can you expect him to?” River shook her head with a pitying sort of smile. “No, I’ve seen the Doctor at his best, and  _ that  _ man. Whole armies would turn and run away. And he’d just swagger off back to their TARDIS and open the doors with a snap of his fingers. Next stop, everywhere.”

“Spoilers.” The Doctor announced his presence. “Nobody can open a TARDIS with a snap of their fingers. It doesn't work like that.”

He didn't know what to make of it. In all his years of traveling, he'd never encountered anyone who made a claim so bold about his future as River Song. What was she to him? He knew, seemingly, what she would be, as Anita reminded him.

“When we first met you, you didn't trust Professor Song. And then she whispered a word in your ear and you did.”

Professor Song was smart, clever even, and certainly capable. If he’d met her under different circumstances, he’d probably quite like her.

But he already knew he couldn't love her, not in the way she deserved.

Perhaps they could learn to work together, grow more comfortable with each other. It could be like before, on Gallifrey. Yet while he would never regret the life — the family — he had had there, he did not see how he could possibly make that choice again. Not when he’d known even briefly what is was to have Donna in his life.

And if despite everything it  _ was  _ true, what did that mean about Donna? Was this really where he lost her?

“What did she say?” Anita asked him. “Give a dead girl a break. Your secret’s safe with me.”

And just like that, it all clicked.  _ Saved _ .

The visitors to the Library that day one hundred years ago hadn't been eaten. They had been saved. Uploaded via the teleports, just waiting for download. Still alive. 

_ Donna  _ was still alive.

With that knowledge in mind, it was simple to put the pieces all together. He went into something like overdrive, explaining it to the remainder of the team in rapid fire. River was watching him with a growing smirk; he supposed that meant he was in top form according to her. And he supposed that meant she'd known Donna was fine all along. What else did she know? Any attempt at asking would be met with her refrain of ‘spoilers’, no doubt.

Just as he finally felt in control, an alarm began to blare.  _ “Autodestruct enabled in twenty minutes.” _

Their group rushed down to the datacore where Lux finally revealed his final secret; CAL was just a little girl, struggling to maintain the safety of more minds than she could handle.

Well, he could help her, give her enough memory space in order to download those minds into their bodies and allow them to finally escape the Library. He promised River to try not to die, but it was an empty promise at best. Better him than over four-thousand people. Better him than Donna.

Apparently, the archaeologist didn't think so, because before he even saw it coming she'd decked him.

The Doctor woke up handcuffed to a pole while River sat in a chair several feet away and was putting the finishing touches on the device that would hook her up to the computer.

“Oh, no, no, no, no. Come on, what are you doing? That's my job.”

She responded with a quip in what seemed her typical fashion, which angered him. This wasn't a game anymore, this was her life!

Of course, she also sobered rather quickly. “Funny thing is, this means you've always known how I was going to die. All the time I’ve known you, you knew I was coming here.”

He’d begun to realize that as well, and it only caused him to fight all the harder against his restraints. If he could just reach the sonic, either of them—

“There's nothing you can do,” she told him.

“You can let me do this.”

“If you die here, it’ll mean my entire life is changed. And for the last time, Doctor, that is not something I want. Remember that, when you see me again.” She smiled then. “You’ve both got all that to come. Just you watch.”

The countdown was getting closer and closer to its end and closer to taking her with it. There was still so much he didn't understand. “River, you know my name. You whispered my  _ name _ in my ear.”

“It's not what you're thinking,” she said as she continued to work with the wires.

He dragged his free hand through his hair. “How could it be anything else? There's only one reason I would ever tell anyone my name. There's only one time I could.”

The countdown had nearly reached zero and he didn't know if he truly wanted an answer, or what he wanted that answer to be.

She smiled through her tears, even as she shook her head. “Hush now. Spoilers.”

In a blinding light, she was gone. The Doctor stared at the spot where she'd once been. He couldn't think of anything, feel anything. It was all a jumbled mess in his mind. River was dead, but he was supposed to see her again — possibly even marry her. Marry a ghost.

He didn't know how long he sat there on the hard floor. There was nowhere else for him to go, chained to the pole and with the sonic just out of reach. All those people milling about upstairs with no idea he was down here. They all might just teleport away and leave him for the Vashta Nerada to find.

There was one person who wouldn't, though, and her voice preceded her. “Doctor?”

It took him a couple tries to speak around the sudden lump in his throat. “In here, Donna.”

She appeared looking just as she had before he'd tried to send her away. He was never making that mistake again. “What have you been chained up for?” Donna came forward a few more steps but stopped short once she'd gotten a better look at him. “What happened to you?”

“Pass me the sonic?”

She did and watched him point it at his restraints. “Where is she? Professor Song. She went back for you, didn't she?”

“She did,” said the Doctor, eyes fixing again on River’s empty chair.

Donna turned round to look herself. “Oh.”

The lock of the cuffs popped open, and he stood while circling his wrist to work the feeling back into it.

Donna stood there. He wasn't sure what he'd expected. A hug? A slap? Perhaps they'd canceled each other out.

“We should go make sure they're all getting out,” he said eventually.

“Yeah,” she agreed. Donna seemed oddly subdued. He itched to ask her what had happened inside the Library datacore, yet his own guilt at having been the one to put her there kept him quiet.

“It's only been a day, hasn't it?” She asked as they got on the lift. “Only in there, it was like years were going by, except they weren't really.”

“Virtual reality. Time functions differently.”

“Yeah, she said that.”

He looked at her. “Who did?”

“Miss Evangelista. The computer picked up her neural relay, so she was in there. Still in there, I suppose.”

“Oh, Donna, I’m sorry.” He’d seen how badly the data ghost had affected her, and he wished he knew how to comfort her this time.

She shrugged it off. “Well, she didn't seem too upset about it. Wasn't stuck repeating herself over and over, anyway. She just wanted to help me, I guess.”

Donna didn't volunteer why she'd needed help or if she'd gotten it. He couldn't detect any physical evidence, and yet he had the strongest impression she'd been crying recently. 

They reached the main floor in silence and watched together as people stepped up to the teleports three at a time.

“What about you?” She asked eventually. “Are you alright?”

Wasn't that the question of the hour? He’d lost — someone. A wife, a friend, a confidante, he didn't know. Couldn't know. Couldn't begin to imagine the circumstances or decisions he would make that would lead to River Song learning his name and sacrificing herself in the Library. Part of him didn't want to try; part of him wished he'd ignored the psychic paper and taken Donna to the beach like he'd promised.

He kept his gaze fixed on the people forming their queues to the teleports. “I’m always alright.”

“Is alright special Time Lord code for really not alright at all?”

He looked at her and found her already staring back at him. Seeing right through him. “Why?”

“Because I’m alright, too,” Donna said simply.

The Doctor held her gaze for a long moment, then reached out to take her hand. Wordlessly, they left the main floor.

He found a balcony to place River’s screwdriver and diary on. After today, no one would ever come to the Library again, leaving them undisturbed. A fitting final resting place for her and the other members of the team.

Although, what Donna had said, about Miss Evangelista…

He raced back down the steps to the future sonic, the one he would design and give to River specifically for this trip. It couldn't just have been a parting gift, could it? Not with what he knew and would know.

A hidden compartment inside proved him right. A neural relay sat inside.

“Oh! Oh, look at that. I'm very good!”

“What have you done?”

He showed it to Donna. “Saved her.”

It was down to the wire, but he just managed to plug her relay into the datacore in time. Professor Song might never go on another expedition in the real world, but there was an endless virtual reality for her to explore in the Library. Not bad.

He returned to the TARDIS when he couldn't find Donna where he'd left her. And just to try it, just to see how much might be true, he stopped several feet in front of the ship, raised his hand, and snapped. The doors sprung open, golden light spilling out onto the floor, and Donna was waiting at the console for him. Next stop, everywhere. He grinned.

It still didn't answer any of his questions about River. All the uncertainties, all the implications. But perhaps, should they cross paths with her again, they might find it a better adventure.

But that would be spoilers.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so as promised the next chapter! Unfortunately not too sure when the following update will be; my midterms are this coming week. I'm going to thank you all in advance for your continued patience as well as feedback. Also special thanks as usual to my beta, colorofmymind. At any rate, please enjoy the chapter!

He was taking her to a spa planet. Donna couldn't believe it.

She picked up a brochure on their way in, familiarizing herself with the various attractions and services they offered. Oh, if anything showed he was still trying to make up for the beach trip that wasn't, this was it. They'd been other places since the Library and even stopped home to see her folks, but nothing quite so grand as this.

“I don’t even know where to start,” said Donna as they left the check-in desk.

“Well, there’s no rush.” The Doctor strolled along at her side with his hands tucked in his pockets, looking about himself with an open curiosity. “We can stay as long as you like.”

Donna stopped. “Seriously?”

He looked back at her and nodded. She felt a smile spread across her face so wide it threatened to break it. He really could treat a girl when he wanted to! Donna grabbed him in a hug, then pulled away just as quickly before she could lose her head and kissed him or something. He’d only just managed to free his hands, and the fingers of one trailed along her arm as she stepped back.

Donna shook the brochure to get them back on track. “So, what first?”

Of course like any bloke, he ran off to the thing that sounded the least spa day possible, though she supposed playing tourist had to count as relaxation for him. He even tried to convince her to come along. As if! Sitting on some bus the entire day just to hop out for a few quick minutes then head right back sounded just like Egypt. Anyway, Donna wasn’t missing out on getting pampered with anything and everything this place had to offer.

She'd been lounging by the pool and contemplating a section of the brochure advertising a clinic that did blemish removals when he'd made his last effort to invite her along to the diamond waterfall, which she firmly rebuffed.

“I’ll be back for dinner,” the Doctor promised over the phone. “We’ll try that anti-gravity restaurant. With bibs.”

“That’s a date,” Donna said, then winced. How’d she let  _ that _ one slip out? First calling him pretty, now this? “Well, not a date,” she corrected before he could even get started. “Oh, you know what I mean. Oh, get off!”

She could hear the grin in his voice. “See you later.”

Donna let him go, not without a warning to be careful. Better safe than sorry. If anybody could find trouble on a bus, it’d be him. She shook her head with a fond smile. That was her Spaceman.

And there she was at it again. Donna knew it wasn’t like that with them. She’d agreed right at the start, happy enough to be traveling on the TARDIS with the Doctor to even worry about things like relationships. Friendship had been all she’d thought she’d ever want from him.

That had been before her worst fear had been confirmed in the Library. Her fate was to die alone, incompatible with love. She'd tossed and turned in her bed every night since, only able to forget the terrible truth when swept up in another adventure with the Doctor.

It wasn’t as if she  _ needed  _ more. She wouldn’t die from longing or trying to think up increasingly desperate innocent reasons to have to kiss him again. But she wouldn’t mind not feeling guilty about either of those things.

It was security she was after, she supposed. The knowledge that at the end of the day there would be someone there for her to have dinner with, to sit beside and talk to, to be with in whatever sense of the word. And if that someone happened to be her best friend, so be it. He’d kissed her back, hadn't he?

The Doctor couldn't be  _ in _ love with her, of course, but at least she didn't feel  _ un _ loved in his company. And he benefited from having someone around, too, whether to stop him from going too far or to keep him from feeling too lonely. They were exactly what the other needed. It might not be destined, but their partnership just made sense.

People made pacts like that all the time; if they didn't find their soulmates by forty, they'd marry their best mate instead. Well, she wasn't quite forty, and he was well past, but what did it matter?

The only trouble was, she knew if he found out about her soulmate mark, he’d insist on looking into it. Never mind that not even the biggest library in the universe had the answer; he’d be determined to find it himself. And as long as he never got anywhere,  _ they’d _ never get anywhere.

She looked over the brochure again. Blemish removals...

Donna didn’t want to sit around wondering about soulmates and destiny any longer. She hadn’t found the Doctor again by sitting around waiting for destiny to happen. She’d made her choice.

Donna drew in a breath, then got up and followed the directions to the clinic.

An attendant looked up from the front desk with a wide smile. “How can we help you today, miss?”

Donna held up the brochure. “It says on here you remove blemishes. Does that include soulmate marks?”

The attendant blinked. “Yes, that is a service we provide. Is that something you would like to have done?”

“It is, yeah. As soon as possible.”

“Very well. If you would follow me to one of our private rooms.”

She did so, taking a seat on the padded exam table as directed. The attendant sat on a wheeled stool.

“The doctor is finishing up with another patron, but as soon as she has finished I will inform her of your appointment. If you have any questions about the procedure, you can of course direct them to me.”

“How painful is it, scale from one to ten?”

The attendant looked up at her. “Oh, no pain, miss. You would be given something to numb the receptors before the procedure, as well as be provided relievers for any lingering pain afterward. The procedure itself can be done in a matter of minutes.”

“Yeah, this one might take a little longer than you’re used to,” she admitted. “Brace yourself.” Donna stood and then turned around before letting her robe fall down her shoulders to expose part of her back. She knew the instant the other woman saw her mark; she gave the usual reaction.

A gasp, followed by an exclamation, this time an “Oh my!” Donna heard her wheel the stool a little closer. “Such an intricate design. What language is this?”

“No idea.”

“You mean you don't know what it says?”

“Haven't the foggiest.”

The back of her neck prickled, and she knew without looking that the attendant was just barely refraining from touching the indecipherable pattern.

“I suppose I would have no better luck than you. This is less of a name and more a work of art. You truly must have a special soulmate,” the attendant said with admiration. “Are you sure removal is your wish?”

“Oi, lady, do you get commission when you talk people out of it?” Donna snapped over her shoulder. “I want this thing gone!”

“Of course,” said the woman, ducking her head. “If that is your decision, we can get started right away.” She stood and retrieved something from a drawer.

“And you can still have it done quick as you said?” Donna checked. “It's just, I’ve got a date tonight. Of sorts.”

The attendant looked at her. “Ah, I see. If you would take this capsule.”

Donna was handed a little pill and a glass of water to help with the swallowing. Just as she'd placed the former on her tongue, a voice came over the speaker system.

_ “Attention, visitors. All Crusader Tours to our sapphire waterfall have been temporarily suspended. Crusader 50 will will make a delayed arrival. We apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you.” _

“Hold on,” said Donna, setting both capsule and water aside. “That's my friend, he was going on one of those. Why would they be delayed?”

“It could be mechanical trouble,” said the woman.

“Yeah, that's not likely with him. I’ve got to go see what this is about.”

“And the procedure, miss?”

Donna paused as she finished retying her robe in the front. “I’ll come back. Later, once I’ve made sure it's sorted.”

She found the information desk soon enough. “Excuse me! That Crusader Tour, the one that's been delayed, are they alright?”

A man with slightly purple-tinged skin looked up at her. “I’m sorry, miss, I can't really discuss that with visitors.”

“But I know someone on that bus,” she said.

“I’m sure your friend—”

“He’s my husband,” Donna decided on the spot. They had to have some sort of next of kin rights in the future, didn't they? “I want to speak to him.”

The man behind the desk hesitated for a few seconds, then sighed. “I’ll see what I can do.” He took up a communicator. “Crusader 50, please respond.”

There was nothing but static on the other end of the line.

“That's odd.”

“Oh, great. So they're trapped out there with no way of calling for help?”

“There was simply a mechanical fault that has rendered the Crusader 50 incapable of moving in either direction. A rescue shuttle has already been sent out to their location.”

“So they’re trapped out there with no way of calling for help,” Donna repeated.

“We are doing everything we can, ma’am.”

Donna sighed. “Yeah, alright. Any idea how long it’ll be?”

“The shuttle is traveling at top speed,” he informed her. “The round trip will take about two hours. If you would like to return to the spa, you may leave a number for me to reach you when they return.”

Donna thought of her pending appointment at the clinic. Then she thought of the Doctor.

“I’ll be staying right here, thanks. I want every update.”

The smile he’d put on for her was definitely forced now. “Of course, ma’am.”

Donna stepped back from the desk to give him a little space, at least. They’d probably end up biting each other’s head off before the rescue shuttle got there, otherwise. She couldn't bring herself to sit still for more than a minute — every time she tried, she just felt so guilty for sitting around while the Doctor might be in danger out there — so Donna paced back and forth instead.

Part of her hoped this was all just some big overreaction on her part. He’d come back grumpy from the long ride and missing the waterfall to boot, then see her in her robe and start laughing. Ask her if that’s what she was wearing to dinner. They could poke fun at each other for both wasting their day at the resort.

In her gut, Donna knew that wasn’t the case.

“Listen, how long has it been now? Shouldn’t the shuttle have reached them?”

“Ma’am, I will tell you as soon as they’ve made contact.”

“But shouldn’t we try contacting them again? Or ask the shuttle to try sending a message, maybe it’s just a reception thing—”

The communicator coming to life saved them from another argument.

_ “This is the rescue shuttle. We’ve reached Crusader 50.” _

Donna and the deskman relaxed. “Ah, there, you see?” He directed his next words into the communicator. “Have you transferred the passengers? I trust there's been no trouble there.”

_ “We’ve transferred them. But they're, er, a bit shaken up. The front cabin’s come clean off somehow and taken the driver and the engineer with it.” _

The man at the desk looked up at her in alarm before quickly taking the communicator and retreating several steps.

“Oi!” Donna leaned as far over the counter as she could and strained to hear.

_ “...incident. The hostess and one of the passengers—” _

“Is the Doctor okay?” Donna demanded. “Is he there?”

The man turned around. “I’m sorry, ma’am. There were no doctors on the crew.”

“No, but my husband is one.”

He nodded his understanding, then spoke into the communicator. “Is one of the remaining passengers a doctor? His wife is very insistent.”

There was a brief pause that felt like an eternity as Donna held her breath and tried to call up half-remembered prayers.

_ “Yeah, he's here. One of the worst off of the lot, though. He’s barely said a word.” _

She let out that shaky breath. He was alive. That was the important thing. The rest, she could handle.

“Where are they gonna be docking?”

The man took a map out and circled the area for her. He was probably glad to be rid of her, really. Donna wasn't bothered. It wasn't her fault his resort had clearly bungled everything.

It was a short walk, and then Donna was forced to wait and pace some more. The Doctor was coming back, but he wasn't well. What did that even mean? What had happened out there to leave four people dead? Something terrible. It was always something terrible when he had nothing to say.

At last, people began coming through in little groups. An older, scholarly looking bloke with a young woman; a family of three. All of them cast furtive glances at her before hurrying away from the scene, as if ashamed to be caught anywhere near the place.

And then there was the Doctor. His face was a blank mask, pale enough that she could make out the freckles on his cheeks even several feet away. He walked towards her with slow, halting steps, but she wasn’t entirely sure if he actually saw her.

Donna met him halfway, hugging him wordlessly. One of his arms folded around her back as though he were on automatic, and it took him a moment to lift the other one as well. When he did, he pressed her even closer to his body, causing Donna’s eyes to fly open before falling closed again. She would hold him as tightly as he needed, if it would keep him together. And it would be a long time before she could even _think_ about letting him go.

In bits and pieces, she got him to relate what had happened. The creature, Sky’s possession, the attempt it had made to take him over and the actions the other passengers had nearly taken. The unnamed hostess’s sacrifice that had been the only thing that stopped them all. Donna barely refrained from bursting out in anger, but harsh words weren't what he needed to hear right now, even when not directed at him. He was already so quiet, so vulnerable. She'd never seen him like this, not ever, and she never wanted it to happen again.

Eventually, they rose back to their feet. The Doctor drew in a breath. “Best to just see the manager or whoever now. Then we can go.”

“Tell you what,” said Donna. “You head back to the TARDIS, and I’ll take care of getting this place shut down.” He looked to be gathering whatever strength he had left to protest, so she added, “Seriously, I can lodge a complaint like no one else. It’ll just take a minute.”

She thought his lips twitched just for a moment. “Alright, if you're sure.”

“Sure I’m sure. You just wait back home.”

It wasn't until Donna was striding away that she realized what she'd said. She supposed, in a way, she wasn't wrong; with her plans to keep traveling forever, it did make the ship a sort of home now. Spaceman hadn't remarked on it anyway, though that could've been because he hadn't deemed it worth the energy.

She made short work of finding the main reception desk, though she could hardly begin speaking before they were attempting to placate her. They must have been warned.

“That thing is still out there! Putting it out in the sun wouldn't have killed it, not when it lives out there!”

“We assure you, ma’am, what happened today was an isolated incident.”

Donna leaned over the desk. “Listen, you can either evacuate the planet and build a resort somewhere else, or my husband and I are gonna hit you with a lawsuit so hard you won't be able to open a bloody tanning bed when we're through with you!”

That got them moving at least. She'd made enough fuss some of the other guests in the area had noticed, so there was no sweeping it under the rug.

“We will need to make transportation ready before announcing the evacuation, you understand.”

“Fine. See that you do.” She straightened back up and paused before leaving. “I’m keeping this robe.” They were so owed a complimentary  _ something. _

Satisfied, Donna returned to the TARDIS. The door had scarcely shut behind her before the Doctor initiated takeoff. She didn't much blame him; Donna hadn't had half as bad a time as him, and she couldn't wait to get away from the place.

Aside from the sounds of the ship it was completely silent, which she set out to change. “So, shall I make us a cuppa? I think we’ve still got some biscuits, or if not I can—”

“I think I might need some time to myself, actually, Donna,” the Doctor said, shoulders hunched and body angled in towards the console.

Donna hesitated. She'd left him alone on that space bus, and look what had happened! He didn't look to be up for an argument, however, so Donna touched his arm briefly before retreating to her room.

“Goodnight, Spaceman.”

There was no reply.

She sat beneath the painting that hung in her room, some starfield lit up in reds and pinks. She'd been meaning to ask him what it was called. Now wasn't a good time, though.

There were a handful of texts from her mates when she checked her mobile, full of inane gossip she couldn't even begin to find an interest in now. A missed call from her mother; she supposed that she could try returning. Or maybe she'd be better off phoning Gramps. At least she could tell him what had happened and maybe get some advice.

Hoping that however this unlimited service and reception worked meant that it picked a good time to send the call to, Donna dialed her grandad’s number. She felt herself smile just at the sound of his voice when he answered. “Hello?”

“Hey Gramps, it's me.”

“Hey, Donna! How are you, sweetheart? Not making another visit, are you?”

“No, I don't think so.” She imagined the last place the Doctor wanted to be right now was a human-inhabited planet. Maybe that was why he hadn't wanted her hanging around. “Not for a while.”

Something in her tone must have tipped him off, for the next thing her grandad asked was, “Is everything alright, love?”

“No,” she said. There was no point in lying, not when she'd called him. “I’m fine, really, but it's the Doctor. Oh, Gramps, it was horrible!”

She told him everything, for once not downplaying the danger. He was just as outraged as her on the Doctor's behalf.

“Those people ought to be ashamed of themselves! Why, it's madness, turning on him when he was only trying to help like he does.”

“I should have been there,” Donna finally said aloud. “I could have done, well, something. Stopped it, maybe. At least he wouldn't have been alone.”

His reply was immediate. “Oh, don't blame yourself.”

“No, but he's so quiet, Gramps. And it's just not like him. He’s just pulling away, and I don't know how to reach him.”

“Best to give him some time,” her grandad advised. “If he hasn't come out of it by the morning, then you knock some sense back into him.”

“You really think I can?”

“If anyone can, it's my girl,” her Gramps said with utter confidence. “He needs you, sweetheart.”

She found herself smiling just a little. “Yeah, I hope so. Thanks for listening, Gramps.”

“I’m always here if you need me.”

“Yeah. I think I might go find him in a minute. I’ll let you know how it goes. Love you.”

“Love you.”

Donna hung up. She felt calmer now, more certain of what needed doing. Since when had she ever been a shrinking violet anyway?

A very soft knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. “Donna, are you in there?”

She sat up straighter. “Yeah, come in!”

The Doctor entered, though remained within reaching distance of the door which he didn't quite close behind him. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, as if unable to make up his mind on where he was going or why he'd come here in the first place. “Hi,” he acknowledged her eventually.

“Hi,” Donna echoed. “Thought you needed some time to yourself?”

“I’m not sure I know what I need anymore,” he confessed. Donna could only stare as he scrubbed his hands over his face. “I shouldn't have bothered you. I’ll just—”

“No, it's okay,” Donna said. She patted the spot next to her on the loveseat, and, slowly, he made his way over before sitting down with a heavy sigh. “I’m glad you came and found me.”

“Are you?” He smiled, but it somehow looked sadder than anything else. “Nice to know someone's glad of my company.”

It struck her the same way it had when she'd met up with him at Adipose Industries; he looked older. And tired, so tired. How could that have happened in just a day? How could she have let it?

Donna could not stop herself this time. She took hold of his shoulders and began guiding him to lie on his side. He made a curious sound in the back of his throat but went willingly till his head was resting in her lap.

Brown eyes gazed up at her. “Donna…?”

“Shh.” If he asked her what she was doing, she'd lose her nerve. It took her a couple tries as it was, but, eventually, Donna set aside her worries about what he might think or guess and placed a hand in his hair.

The Doctor's eyes closed, but he made no move to stop her or go. He was probably even more exhausted than she'd thought. Her confidence growing in the face of his trust, Donna tended to him with a soft touch the way she'd longed to for some time now.

She stroked his hair, his shoulders, his back — he shuddered, and his face was screwed up as if he was fighting desperately to hold in all that tremendous pain he carried with him.

“It's okay,” she tried to soothe.

“It's really not,” he said in a voice so choked it took her a minute to understand. “I shouldn't be here. I'm not supposed to be here.”

Her hands clenched in his jacket, balling into fists. God help those other passengers if she ever saw them again.

“Of course you're supposed to be here. You're right where you're supposed to be.”

A sob escaped him. One of his hands reached blindly and clasped onto her knee while he turned his face into her lap. That didn't stop her from noticing the tears that leaked onto her pajama bottoms.

It might have frightened her, seeing him like this, if they hadn't already been through so much together. And a part of her could feel nothing but relief; he needed this.

Gradually, his great, gulping breaths evened out and his body relaxed. Donna rubbed his back through it all and dabbed at her own eyes with the corner of her sleeve. As much as she tried to deflate his ego at times, seeing him so wretched and lonely was so much worse. She could only try to make up for all the things he'd lost and hope that got through to him somehow. At the least, he’d chosen to turn to her.

It was when his grip on her knee slackened that Donna knew for certain he'd fallen asleep. No surprise after the day he'd had. “Oh, Spaceman,” she murmured. Donna leaned over and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

Whether or not her Gramps was right, Donna was certain of one thing: she had to find some other place to get rid of her mark. There couldn't be any question of where her loyalties lay; if he found out about it he'd go thinking himself some unwanted burden again, probably try and leave her for her own good or something short-sightedly noble like that. Then he'd be all alone, and the more Donna knew him the more she could see how desperately he needed somebody.

“And I'm all you’ve got,” said Donna, gently combing his hair back from his forehead. His face was nearly dry of tears now, and she hoped in sleep at least he was finding some peace. “You poor Spaceman.”

—-

The Doctor came to with achy eyes, a runny nose, and a bit of drool trailing from the corner of his mouth and onto Donna's nightclothes. He sat up with an immediacy that dislodged her hands from where they'd been resting on his back and in his hair but did not wake her.

Her head was tilted back and slightly to the side, her mouth hanging open as her chest rose and fell with even breaths. Who knew how long he'd kept her here if she'd dropped off to sleep in the meantime? And yet Donna had not moved him, left him, or made any complaint.

She'd told him he belonged here with her, and the Doctor would give perhaps anything for that to be true. And yet he knew thanks to spoilers it couldn't last.

Who was he kidding? He didn't need foreknowledge; he could see for himself just where this would end if they took things any further or any more intimate. The minute Donna got one look at his back it would all be over.

He’d been a fool to think he could bring her along and not fall in love with her. Now he was trapped between longing and dreading. A suitable punishment for him, he supposed.

No, he had to be more careful, had to remember the boundary they'd agreed on and why it was there. Donna didn't even want a relationship with him, so what was the fuss anyway? She'd been being a good friend letting him cry on her, holding him with a tenderness he hadn't known existed before. Taking care of him like she always did.

Well, now it was his turn. She wouldn't have a very good sleep propped up on the loveseat like that. The Doctor eased his arms under her legs and behind her back, lifting and carrying her over to the bed. He sat her up against the pillows to turn the sheets and covers down and remove her shoes, then tucked her underneath.

She turned her head to the side and he tensed. But Donna was still asleep. Releasing the breath he'd been holding, the Doctor reached up to take out the elastic holding her hair back and allowed his fingers to run through the ginger waves. Donna turned over again, this time towards him, her cheek resting against his palm with a sigh. It brought the first true smile to his face since everything had gone wrong on Midnight.

Martha, Agatha, they all thought he was miserable living this way, that every day was an agony. But they didn't see it at all; each day he got to spend with Donna was a gift. A gift he wasn't supposed to have, perhaps, but that was getting into that old adage about horses or something. He’d have to ask Donna how it went later. Or Arthur.

The point was, his own happiness and the beauty Donna brought into his world outweighed the pain by far. There was no contest. Given the choice between a life with her as a friend or without her at all — well, it didn't even bear thinking about.

He withdrew his hand and watched Donna nuzzle at her pillow, as if searching for where it’d gone. Heady with her scent and her touch, he couldn't resist leaning over her and brushing his lips ever so lightly against her temple. It was the one and only infraction he would allow.

“Sweet dreams, Earthgirl.”

Donna murmured something unintelligible back.

The Doctor turned off the lamp and slipped out into the corridor with a lightness in his step that hadn't been there before. But Donna always had a way of making the worst of times merely seem like a bad dream.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo sorry about the nearly month-long wait. I really need to work on that. At any rate, thank you all so much for your comments and kudos and bookmarks and for your patience. I decided some more non-canon adventures were needed, and so hopefully you enjoy the all-new content with our favorite, mixed-up pair. Once again, my gratitude to colorofmymind, without whose edits this story would be far less comprehensible. Thanks for reading and let me know what you think!

The next few weeks they spent on a whirlwind of adventure to places in time and space far from humanity. Donna did not complain even once about the breakneck pace or the lack of familiar-looking faces; she seemed to intrinsically get his need to put as much space between them and Midnight as possible, as if by doing so he could pretend it had happened centuries in his past rather than a month or so ago.

He was hardly ever without her; Donna appeared to be sticking as close as possible, perhaps out of some kind of guilt for staying behind at the spa. He’d say something about it except he was far too glad of her company. Even if it wasn’t prudent to his goal of keeping her unaware of his feelings.

Fortunately, while Donna had certainly improved at noticing things of an extraterrestrial origin, she seemed to not pick up on anything of the sort from him, which was truly remarkable. He didn’t think he could even be classed as subtle anymore.

For one thing, he finally got them to that beach she’d been asking for. “The planet Florana. I’ve been meaning to come back here for ages. We’re near the end of the warm season, so most of the tourists have gone home,” he explained as they looked out the doors at the few people dotting the sand and surf. “Still, plenty nice out.”

“Definitely. Oh,  _ this _ is a vacation!” She beamed at him and then started back up the ramp for the corridor to her room. “Just let me get changed. Have you got any chairs?”

“I’m sure I can find something.”

The TARDIS did have a couple beach chairs and even an umbrella tucked away in storage. He picked a spot far enough from the shore they wouldn’t be surprised by the high tide and hung his jacket on the back of one of the chairs, settling down to wait for Donna.

To his confusion and, admittedly, disappointment, she emerged from the ship in a sundress with a big hat and sunglasses. Donna parked herself right under the umbrella in the chair to his left and took out a book.

“Are you even going to test out the water? I could’ve taken you to a desert if you just wanted a bit of sand.” Admittedly, he knew of no desert with sands as soft as Florana’s, but that was beside the point.

Donna barked a laugh. “Have you seen me? I’d boil out there. Then my whole skin would turn to freckles, which is just what I’d need.” She flipped a page. “And you’re one to talk, Mr. I Only Own Two Suits.”

The Doctor frowned down at his clothes. Ordinarily he wouldn’t mind a dip in the ocean, but he couldn’t exactly afford to strip down to a pair of trunks around Donna.

“What’s wrong with freckles?” He asked instead.

Donna looked up. “Oh, calm down, you look fine.”

“Me?”

“Sure. People hardly notice them unless they’re up close.”

He contemplated asking just when Donna had noticed his freckles but thought better of it. “I was talking about your freckles.”

“Yeah, I’m not so lucky.”

“I think you’re perfectly lucky. Perfectly freckled.” It occurred to the Doctor that perhaps this was straying a bit out of friends territory, so he quickly switched to what Donna had termed his ‘lecture mode’. “In fact, there are places in the universe that highly revere freckles. Some species use them to tell fortunes, sort of like palm readings. And others believe it to be a marking from the gods, a kiss from the sun that warms their planet and gives them life.”

Donna turned back to her book with a shake of the head, but he could tell by the smile playing at the corners of her mouth that she was trying very hard not to be pleased.

“Well the universe loves their marks, don’t they?”

His own smile faltered. “Right.”

Though he couldn’t see her eyes behind the sunglasses, he was fairly certain Donna had stopped reading. “Doctor—”

“I know a great place for brunch here,” he said brightly. “Course, it’s past brunch, but I’m sure they have something. Won’t be a moment.”

He sprung up from his chair and was hurrying off across the sand before she could say much more than an “Oi!”

It wasn’t that Donna’s disregard for soulmate marks surprised him. She didn’t have one, after all, and so she could hardly think they were necessary. Would she even care about his, in that case? What if he was simply fretting over nothing?

“Doctor!”

He looked round to find Donna had also abandoned their chairs and was running to catch up. “You didn’t have to come along. I could have brought it back with me.”

“Well, I wanna see the place. Besides, what’s that garden over there?”

They did take their food to go, but, rather than return to the beach, they made a walking tour of Florana’s famous carpets of flowers.

“This place is gorgeous. How many times have you been?”

“A fair few.”

“I don’t know how you’d stay away,” said Donna. She’d removed her sunglasses as the light was slowly beginning to fade into evening, and he much preferred seeing the wonder and delight in her eyes.

“Well, something usually comes up. And that’s for the better, really. Makes the times I do spend here more special.”

Donna smiled up at him, and the Doctor was struck by the thought that no future trip to Florana could possibly top this.

“Come on, then. One more thing to do.” He took her by the hand and led her back to the beach, pausing briefly by their chairs to kick off his shoes.

“What are you doing?” Asked Donna.

“It’s not a trip to the beach unless you dip your toes in the water. Allons-y!”

He pulled them down to the water’s edge, jumping with a splash into the shallows.

“Oh, it’s warm!”

“Yeah, is that what you were afraid of?”

“Who said anything about afraid?” Donna kicked at the water, catching his trousers and part of his shirt.

“Oh, Donna Noble,” said the Doctor with a grin. “That is a challenge you will regret.”

“Wait- wait a minute,” said Donna, backing away a step. She shrieked as he sent a wave rolling her way. “You said dipping our toes!”

“That’d hardly be any fun!”

He and Donna chased each other up and down the shore, ending up just as soaked as if they’d plunged right into the sea. They stopped only when they’d grown too breathless from laughing to keep running. The Doctor reached down to retrieve her hat, which was bobbing in the shallow waves, and shook out the excess water. “I believe this is yours, Madame.”

“Thank you.” She placed it on and pushed the brim back when it flopped into her face, setting off a fresh round of laughter. As he calmed again, he noticed her shivering slightly in her wet clothes.

“Are you cold?”

“Just a little. Oh, but let’s not go back yet,” she said, taking hold of his arm. “I’ve always wanted to watch a sunset on the beach.”

“Wait here.” He darted back up to the chairs and snatched up his jacket. Looking around, it only just registered they were alone. Everyone else must have packed up for the night.

Donna accepted his jacket with a smile this time, though when he went to place it on her shoulders, he paused as Donna moved her hair aside. Was it a trick of the light casting shadows or was something showing through the fabric of her dress?

“Are you cold?”

“What?”

Donna looked over her shoulder at him. “Cause you can have it. It’s your jacket. I’m the one who didn’t bring anything.”

“No, no I’m fine. Just lost in thought for a minute there.” He placed it on her, reminding himself it was supremely disrespectful to peer at Donna in her wet clothes like that, even if just her back. “So sunset on the beach. Wouldn’t you have seen it in Spain?”

“I was too tired from the scuba diving,” she told him. “Went straight back to my hotel and passed out right on top of the covers. Anyway, I wouldn’t have had anyone to go with.”

She began walking along the shoreline, and he followed her lead. “Well, why not? Wouldn’t your friends have wanted to see it?”

“I didn’t have any friends with me.” She grimaced at his questioning look. “It was a singles tour.”

“Singles tour.”

Donna pushed at his arm. “Oi, I see that grin. Veena and Susie Mair pitched in for it, for my thirty-fifth. They thought it be good for me, cause my mark’s not— not there.”

“Oh?” The Doctor stared. Donna had never seemed upset about her lack of mark before.

“Yeah, well it was a tour specifically for people who hadn’t found their soulmate or didn’t want to.”

“Or didn’t have one,” he supplied.

“Right. Or who’d found them and...already lost them.” She was watching him with a tremendously sad expression he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d done to earn. It was possible it wasn’t about him at all, of course; just Donna’s natural empathy for those people who had loved and lost shining through.

“And I take it the tour went brilliantly?”

Donna scoffed. “Hardly. Everyone was too caught up in this or that thing about marks. It’s a bit rubbish, isn’t it?” Donna’s eyes were cast out to the horizon now, and her voice was soft. She was hugging his jacket to herself. “Being told right from the start you’re only gonna love one person. And if you can’t find them or you lose them, that’s tough.”

“Well, not everyone sees it that way. There are plenty of societies who don’t make much fuss about it at all. Think it’s a quirk of biology, meant to be phased out over the course of evolution.” His mind went back to red grass and silver leaf trees and Koschei dropping a book on his desk —  _ It simply means ‘lady’, silly. How very foolish of you. _

How foolish of him, indeed, and what a lady.

“And plenty of civilizations don’t see it as a requirement for romantic love or a relationship or that sort of thing. True, if you take it to mean the person who best complements you, I suppose the inclination is to spend the rest of your life with them, but that could just as easily be with a friend or a family member. Not having a mark doesn’t bar a person from having a significant other, at least not anywhere I’ve yet to be.”

Because Donna was still looking for someone, wasn’t she? The day they’d met she’d been planning to marry. She was not interested in marks, perhaps, but she was interested in making some kind of connection with a someone. The fading light reflected in her eyes and made her hair shine as she gazed at the horizon, and whatever she was searching for the Doctor could only hope she might find it someday. No matter how far it might take her from him. She deserved all that and more.

“The universe is infinite and infinitely fickle,” he said. “Maybe soulmate marks mean something. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they only mean what we let them.”

Donna turned to him. “It doesn’t make a difference to you?”

He’d told Martha the last time that he’d be traveling with Donna regardless of the name on his back. And it was only too obvious to the Doctor as he looked at her that how he had grown to feel about this woman would have happened all the same as well.

“No, it doesn’t.” He placed his hands on her shoulders, guiding her back around. “Now, come on. You’re about to miss your sunset on the beach.”

They stayed until the last rays sunk below the horizon, then retreated back to the warmth and dryness of the TARDIS. Donna came and found him that evening while he was wiping down the control panel. She’d showered and changed into sleepwear. “What are you up to?”

“Just making sure any sand didn’t get into the controls. It’d mess up the whole configuration, not to mention make our Old Girl rather cross, wouldn’t it?” He directed the last bit to his ship, which resonated with a hum in affirmation.

“Well, we can’t have that,” she said with an indulgent smile. “I think I’ll just head to bed then.”

“Brilliant, we’ll start fresh in the morning.”

Donna still remained where she was. “Doctor?”

“Hm?”

Donna hesitated. “Thanks for today.”

The Doctor felt a grin stretch across his lips, though he kept his head ducked. Donna wasn’t one to offer unwarranted praise; he’d truly gotten it right this time.

“Well, it’ll probably be straight back to the usual tomorrow,” he felt it fair to caution.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” She was still standing there, going on near five minutes since she’d presumably excused herself. Was there something she wanted, or wanted to say?

He lifted his head and had just opened his mouth when Donna said, “Goodnight, Spaceman.”

Thrown, he echoed a, “Goodnight,” and watched her leave the room. What had that been about?

He turned back to the control panel, still puzzling over it, when the TARDIS sparked at his fingertips. The Doctor yelped and staggered a couple steps back. “What was that for?”

His ship dimmed and then brought up the lights to the corridor Donna had disappeared down.

“Oh no. Best to let her come round to the point on her own, you and I both know that. If it’s important, she’d say so.” He paused. “Right?”

He was fairly certain if a Type 40 Time Capsule had eyes and was capable of rolling them, that was what his ship would be doing, at least judging by the noise she made.

The Doctor frowned. “Oh, what do you know?”

—

Donna closed her bedroom door behind her with an exhale. That had been close.

She wasn’t sure what had made her nearly lose her head and fess up to everything. Maybe the ocean air had gotten to her or the brilliant colors that had streaked across the evening sky at sunset or the familiar comfort of his jacket surrounding her.

It had felt like that Christmas Eve they had met, before all the ‘just friends’ and ‘not a couple’, when Donna had seen so much and felt so much that she’d been too frightened to go with him.

She wasn’t afraid of the Doctor anymore, but there was still a fear of this, of what they were possibly becoming.

If someone had told her a year ago she’d be this happy now, she’d have asked what they’d been smoking. But it was true; delightfully, terrifyingly true. And the last thing she wanted was to mess it up.

There weren’t butterflies in her stomach or jittery nerves whenever he was near. They were too comfortable with each other for that sort of silliness. Instead Donna felt it as an ache in her gut, in her teeth, in her very bones whenever he’d hold her gaze or take her hand for a bit too long.

She couldn’t pinpoint when it’d started. When she’d kissed him? When she’d comforted him after Jenny’s death, or Midnight? Maybe she’d always felt this way, and it had crept up on her, building and building to something she couldn’t easily ignore.

Donna shrugged out of her robe and sat on the bed with another sigh. She was starting to feel like one of those heroines of classic literature, which she’d sworn up and down she’d never be.

And she didn’t  _ want _ to ignore it, at least not anymore, only she was stuck. As long as that stupid mark remained on her back, she wouldn’t be able to move forward in a relationship with the Doctor.

She’d known that already, but maybe that was why she’d nearly taken the leap tonight anyway. He’d looked her in the eye on that shore of impossibly soft sand and told her soulmate marks changed nothing about his feelings for a person.

And yet he’d lied about not having a mark himself. Donna didn’t begrudge him having had a soulmate any more than she begrudged him having had a wife, but what did it mean that he wanted her to think he didn’t have a mark? Did it mean he was open to seeing other people, seeing  _ her _ ? More likely, it was his silent way of grieving.

Donna was probably getting ahead of herself even assuming that the Doctor returned her feelings. Even if he was the one sharing those looks or taking her hand or providing her dream date at the beach.

Donna groaned and flopped onto her back. This was ridiculous. She’d never bothered to chase things around in circles in her mind regarding men before. Maybe because she’d always known those relationships weren’t really going anywhere, whereas  _ this _ relationship...she could lose far more than a bit of her pride. She could lose her best friend.

She just didn’t think she could afford being wrong about this.

Donna was startled by a knock on her door. “Coming!” She remembered to grab up her robe, but only got one arm in a sleeve before she’d wrenched open the door. “Hi.”

Donna wanted to smack herself. She and the Doctor were the only people on this ship, and she’d just seen him minutes ago. What was she saying ‘hi’ for?

By some miracle he didn’t take the mick. “Hi. Sorry, I didn’t wake you, did I?”

Donna shook her head. “Hadn’t even got under the covers.” 

His lips quirked in a smile, though he said nothing.

“Everything okay?”

“Hm? Oh sure,” he said. “I was only wondering if, er, if you knew where my jacket ended up.”

Donna’s eyes went wide and a breathy sort of laugh escaped her. “Right! Totally forgot.” Of course, he was here for some perfectly sensible reason. Donna went into her en suite and took it off the hook on the door. She folded it over her arm and found the Doctor still hovering in her doorway. “You’re allowed in, you know.”

“Oh, right. Good. Thanks,” he added, accepting his jacket back from her.

“It’s got a bit of sand on it. And the saltwater probably wasn’t good.” Donna grimaced.

“Nothing to worry about. The TARDIS will take care of it.”

“Really, she has dry cleaning?” Asked Donna. “Do you have to empty out all the pockets first? That must take ages.”

“Yeah, good thing I’ve got the blue suit, then.” He grinned down at her with his tongue pressed to the back of his teeth, and for one wild moment all Donna could think was  _ he would kiss back, he  _ **_would_ ** _. _

She turned away for some space to breath and remembered she ought to respond to that joke somehow. “You’re ridiculous,” she stammered, not one of her best.

“Donna?” The Doctor took a step towards her. She wasn’t sure if it wasn’t just her imagination, but she could feel her left arm sort of tingling. Why did they always have to stand so close? Was that some sort of subconscious decision she’d been making while her mind played catch-up?

“Everything okay?”

She was having trouble remembering precisely why she shouldn’t tell him. A look back at him over her shoulder did the trick; the Doctor’s brow was furrowed, and she could practically see the gears of his Time Lord brain turning away trying to figure it all out. That was just how he’d be about her mark, no matter what he’d said on the beach. He never gave up on a mystery.

Normally, Donna loved that about him.

“Think I’m just tired,” she said, not entirely without truth.

The Doctor backed up a step. “Right, sorry. This could have waited.” He showed himself to the door, only poking his head back in to give her a, “Goodnight.”

“Night.”

Her door shut, and Donna fell back onto her bed face-first with another pitiful groan. She  _ had _ to get rid of this bloody mark before one of them took things a step too far. Then she could believe him when he said marks didn’t matter because they wouldn’t. Not once she was rid of hers.

As she should have expected, their next destination didn’t look promising for that. They stood together in the doorway that morning looking out at the dense wood the TARDIS had parked beside. Donna could hear birds and other animals scurrying about, but little else.

“The 17th century,” the Doctor announced. “Think we might be somewhere in New England — which gets rather confusing in the 34th century when the English try to decide on a name for their new planet.”

“Fascinating,” said Donna. She’d rather they were there, truthfully. Where they were seemed rather isolated and gloomy in comparison. “17th century. So not totally settled, then? What do you think’s out there? Apart from trees.”

“There might be something or someone on the other side of them,” the Doctor said. “Suppose we should walk a bit, see if we find anything.” He stepped out of the TARDIS, clearly meaning to start off right away.

“Wait a minute,” said Donna.

“Why, what’s wrong?”

“It looks about ready to rain, that’s what’s wrong. Let me get my coat. You’ll get something with a hood, too, if you know what’s good for you.”

When she returned, he was still in his trench coat. They didn’t make it twenty paces from the TARDIS before the first raindrops began to patter the top of her hood.

“Looks like you were right,” the Doctor remarked.

“Yeah, maybe next time you’ll take my word for it. You’re gonna catch cold.”

“I won’t melt,” he replied even as he turned his collar up a little higher. Donna shook her head.

They’d found the narrow part of the wood, it seemed, for it wasn’t long before the trees thinned out and buildings began to rise into view. Most were wood, a few had some stone or a second floor, and everything was very plain.

The rain had tailed off into a very faint drizzle by the time they happened upon the town center. There was a broad-shouldered man approaching the green at an angle to them.

“Introduction time?” Donna guessed.

“Looks like,” the Doctor replied before calling out, “Hello!”

The man looked up. “Hello. Afraid I don’t recognize you, neighbors.”

“Oh, that’s because we’re not. Just got here.”

“Travelers?”

“Yeah, that about sums us up,” said Donna. “Thought we’d look around before settling for somewhere, right?”

He didn’t seem to get her joke, but greeted them nonetheless, “Welcome to town, then. Josiah Aleworth.”

“I’m the Doctor, and this is Donna Noble,” said the Doctor.

“A physician?” Josiah’s eyebrows rose. “That could be just what we need.”

The Doctor exchanged a significant look with her. She could see right where this was going. “Oh?”

“There have been strange things happening in the woods, folks have been saying. In Salem, the girls have gone mad.”

Predictably, the Doctor perked right up at that. “Strange things in the woods?”

“We didn’t notice anything,” Donna pointed out.

Josiah regarded them both with surprise. “You passed through them?”

“Oh, sort of cut through the edge on our way,” said the Doctor. “We were hoping to make it before nightfall.”

That explanation seemed to satisfy their new friend. “Well, if you haven’t had your fill of them, a few of the men are going out there to scout out the place where these witches perform their black magic. We’ll be gathering in front of the meetinghouse.”

The Doctor was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet by this point. “Brilliant. I’d love to have a look.”

“I’ll tell them you’ll be joining us.” Josiah started off across the commons.

Donna caught the Doctor’s arm before he could follow.

“Wasn’t it just some dodgy bread making them act like that? I mean, you don’t think it was really some alien thing, do you?” She asked in a low tone.

“Well, you never want to rule anything out without proof,” he answered. “Still, I think we should be able to put things to rest fairly quickly.”

They shared a nod and set off after the man. About five others had joined him in front of the building he’d called the meetinghouse, and Josiah pointed out each of them while rattling off their names.

“You’ll be wanting one of these, Doctor,” said a man called Beecher, holding out a musket.

“I really won’t.”

Josiah had noticed her, and he smiled. “Come to see us off? If you go and speak with my Elizabeth, I’m sure she can get you something dry to wear and a bit to eat.”

Donna shook her head. “No thanks, I’m coming with you lot.”

A few of the men looked at each other and mumbled under their breaths. Josiah frowned. “It won’t be safe for your woman out there, Doctor.”

The Doctor tugged at his ear and shot her a nervous glance. “Oh, well Donna’s not—”

He would have finished the usual denial routine, but Donna crossed her arms and barked, “Oi, why can’t he be my man?”

The Doctor stopped mid-sentence and gave her an incredulous look.

“What? Everyone’s always quick with the ‘your woman’ bit. It’d make a nice change, at least.” It wasn’t like she could get all that offended at the assuming-they-were-a-couple bit when it was the bloody Puritans they were dealing with. Or when she didn’t really find it all that offensive.

“Not exactly the point,” he said, voice rather higher than normal. He managed to work it into a lower, quieter register. “Erm, listen, it might be best for you to stick around, Donna. Have a look about the town, get the locals to trust you— you’re quite good at that.”

If he thought he could distract her with flattery, he had another thing coming. “And let you go off into the creepy woods by yourself?”

“Well, I won’t strictly be by myself.”

“Yeah, and you weren’t last time, either!” The words were out of her mouth before she could think better of them, and he flinched back from her. “Doctor—”

“I need to know I can still do this, Donna,” he said to the dry and brittle leaves that littered the path between them. “That what happened wasn’t— wasn’t what all the rest of them are like.” He looked up at her again, eyes big and brown and searching hers.

Donna relented with a sigh. “Okay.”

The smile that lit up his face was going to be the death of her, she just knew it. “I’ll be back before dark.”

“It practically  _ is  _ dark,” she said, gesturing to the clouds.

The Doctor had begun walking backwards towards the scouting party. “You know what I mean!”

“Be careful!”

“Bye!”

She watched him disappear over the hill with a fondness she might have mocked in other women in the past. Funny how these sorts of things crept up on a person. She made her way to the home Josiah had indicated and knocked.

A woman answered after a few moments. She was very small and squinted a bit. “Hello?”

Donna put on a smile. “Hi. My name’s Donna Noble. Your husband sent me your way. I’ve just come into town with the Doctor. He’s off with them, though, or he’d introduce himself.”

Elizabeth Aleworth stepped aside. “Well, come in. I’m afraid the meal isn’t quite ready. Josiah’s liable to be out in those woods for a couple hours.”

“Yeah, that’s alright. I’m not that hungry.”

“Oh, but you must be cold walking through all that rain. Come upstairs, and I’ll see what we have for you to put on.”

“That’s really kind of you,” said Donna as she followed the woman further into the house.

“I’ll give you something of Patience’s to wear. She helps mind the children some days, and you’re nearer her size.”

She was shown into a small bedroom and handed what seemed to her a whole pile of clothes. There weren’t any buttons or zippers, just a bunch of lace ties. The Romans had them beat on clothes for sure! The toga had been much lighter, too; she could probably lose a few pounds just walking around in one of these. She’d have to get her Spaceman’s take on it; he’d already commented the last two times she’d dressed for the period.

They’d been toeing this line for a while, hadn’t they?

Donna was still in the middle of figuring how it all came together when her host bustled back in.

“If you’ll just put your things in this basket— oh!”

Donna looked over her shoulder. Elizabeth had dumped her basket on the floor and was staring at Donna’s back in horror, where a portion of her mark was visible.

“Oh, yeah, this thing. I know it’s—”

“Sign of the Devil!”

Donna cocked her head to the side. “What, are you quoting  _ Sweeney Todd  _ at me?”

The woman ran shrieking from the room. Donna pulled the remainder of her borrowed clothes on as best she could and made to follow but scarcely crossed the threshold before she was grabbed at the arms by two young men.

“Oi! Let me go!”

“She’s the one, Elizabeth?”

“That’s her. Her mark’s in tongues. It’s witchcraft, I swear it!”

“Oh, you are  _ kidding _ ,” said Donna.

“We’ll have to send for the Reverend. What should we do with her in the meantime?”

“Lock her away,” Elizabeth ordered. “We can’t let her near the girls or the children!”

Though she struggled as hard as she could, Donna still found herself forced back into a room, and the door slammed in her face.

“Hey! You can’t just lock people up on a whim! Call yourselves the land of the free?” When she tried the door it was locked, and the window was too high off the ground to try going out that way. She banged on it regardless. Maybe someone below would hear her and realize those other people were absolutely mental.

But then, the whole witch trial thing had been mental. A bunch of towns turning on their own neighbors left and right, torturing and killing innocent people...and if she couldn’t get out of here, she might end up as one of them.

“Help! Help me! Doctor!  _ Doctor! _ ”

—

They’d steered clear of the TARDIS so far, which he was happy about. The Old Girl’s disguise didn’t hold up nearly as well in pre-police box periods, as had been proved by Caecilius in Pompeii. One of these days he’d take a look at that Chameleon circuit. Maybe.

“So what has you so convinced there’s witches about?” The Doctor looked back at Josiah. “You’re not exactly next door to Salem.”

“The whole Massachusetts Bay Colony has been on the lookout. We’re wanting to put a stop to any of that black magic before it can get a hold of our towns. Just where did you and Goody Noble come from, Doctor?”

“Oh, no no,” he said. “Donna’s not my wife. Just a friend and traveling companion.”

One of the other men— Beecher, they’d called him —snorted. “Did not seem that way back there.”

“Yes, well, it is,” he replied weakly.

Josiah was shaking his head. “That’s no way to be. Dragging her about the country with nothing to tide her but your word.”

“You’ve really got this the wrong way round,” he remarked, then remembered himself. The idea wasn’t to get on people’s nerves; that was how things went wrong on Midnight. The Doctor tried again. “I mean that I’m not intending to marry Donna, and she would much prefer things that way.” He thought again of Donna’s outburst. “I think.”

“But I take it you would prefer things another way,” said Josiah.

Oh, what was the use? Anybody who wasn’t Donna saw straight through him anyway. “I suppose,” he admitted.

“Is it the Lord’s mark troubling you?” Asked Beecher.

“The Lord’s—” he repeated in confusion before catching the meaning. “Oh, you’ve no idea.”

“Reverend Parke gave sermon on the Lord’s mark a fortnight ago. Sometimes it is necessary that man must go against His mark to carry out His will. The Lord commanded His children ‘be ye fruitful and multiply’—”

“Right, thanks,” said the Doctor, rather hoping that would be the end of it.

Beecher kept on. “To settle this New World, we must have children.”

“Well that’s putting the cart before the horse, isn’t it?” The Doctor peered out into the woods, as polite a brush-off as he could think of. What he wouldn’t give for a Carrionite right now. 

Josiah laughed. “What Beecher means plainly, Doctor, is that Miss Noble seems to make a good wife. Enough that we all believed her to be  _ your  _ Goodwife. That’s as good as the Lord’s will to me.”

“If only it were that simple, Josiah,” he said.

Off in the distance behind them, a bell began to toll. The other men turned around.

“Josiah, the church bell!”

“Something is wrong. Hurry, back to town!”

By the time they returned, a small crowd had gathered by the meetinghouse. Donna wasn’t among them, he noted almost immediately. He couldn’t help the beginnings of worry; Donna always found her way to the center of the action. Where had she got to?

Josiah strode right through the crowd heading straight for one woman in particular. “Elizabeth, what has happened?”

“The woman you sent to our doorstep, Josiah,” she explained heatedly. “The sign of the Devil is with her!”

“Donna? That can’t be right,” the Doctor interjected, entirely thrown. What even was a sign of the Devil?

“My eyes saw plainly,” the woman insisted.

“Goody Aleworth called for our aid,” a young man added. “We’ve locked the witch away and sent a rider for Reverend Parke.”

“What do you need him for?” He asked.

“To get a confession, of course!” Beecher answered him.

“Right, a confession. Okay, maybe we could all wait a minute, just wait. Just a minute, a moment, really, everyone.”

They all stared at him, but at the least no one was talking of confessions and what those lead to.

“Let’s just assume for the sake of the argument that Donna is a witch. What has she done to any of you?” There was silence. “Exactly. She could be a good witch. By Wizard of Oz standards, she definitely qualifies! Just let her go with me. If you bring me to her, I promise we will leave, and you will never see us again. Please, just tell me where she is,” he begged.

“You can’t,” said Josiah. “Suppose she bewitches you?”

“Suppose she already has,” murmured Beecher. “They arrived here together.”

Some muttering started up in the crowd. He had a feeling his chances of reasoning with any of them had just been dashed.

Josiah shook his head. “No one must see her till she’s put on trial tomorrow for her crimes.”

“Right, of course. I understand,” said the Doctor with a nod. He turned, walked two paces, then drew in a breath and shouted for all he was worth,  _ “DONNA!” _

Scarcely a moment passed before he heard an echoing  _ “Doc-tah!” _ And with that, he was off, sprinting towards the building it had come from.

A boy hurried in front of the door. “No one’s allowed—”

“Get out of the way!”

Whatever look was in his eye was enough to frighten the child into running off. He could hear Donna somewhere within.

“I’m in here! Doctor!”

The door was locked, but that’d be no trouble for him. He reached into his coat for the sonic.

“Step back from that door, Doctor, if you know what’s good for you.” When he turned around, Josiah had his musket aimed and ready. Beecher and the others, as well as a few of the women of the town, stood behind him.

“Oh, believe me, Josiah, I do.” He remained right where he was. “Look at all of you. So ready to give in to the first sign of suspicion. Turning on people because you’re frightened and don’t understand.” Not a one of them looked moved by his words, but that he wasn’t surprised by. Anyone who would lock up Donna Noble wouldn’t listen the slightest bit to him. “Well, you want witchcraft, do you?”

He pointed the sonic into the air and activated it on the loudest, highest setting it could go. Windowpanes and lamps shattered. Men and women fell back with cries of alarm at the unexpected noise.

The Doctor wasted no time in redirecting the sonic screwdriver at the lock and charged right in once it popped open. He found her in a room on the second floor. As soon as he’d soniced and yanked that door open, Donna flew right into his arms.

“They want to have me killed!”

“Pretty sure you’ll have company. Come on, out the back!” He doubted the sonic would scare them as badly a second time.

They fled straight into the woods, hands clasped tightly together. It was slower going than he’d like; Donna’s skirts kept catching on twigs and thickets. Shouts of the townsfolk were only growing louder despite them moving further away.

Donna gave another frustrated cry as she jerked them to a stop again.

“Remind me never to dress like the locals again!” Her breath was coming in panicked gasps as she yanked at the hem that had caught this time. “How come no one ever makes  _ you  _ change?”

He peered behind them. Were those footsteps he heard snapping twigs and crunching leaves, or just the wildlife? “I have an idea, but you’re not gonna like it!”

“Just do it!”

Not needing to be told twice, the Doctor scooped her up in his arms, a few thistles ripping off the branch with her. Donna gave a yelp and kicked her legs for a moment, but, upon realizing she was free, locked her arms around his neck as he took off again for the TARDIS.

They’d been veering a bit off course in the mad rush to escape, but soon enough they both spotted the light shining through the trees. He had to shift one arm under her bum in order to free his other hand to snap, though he nearly bungled that when Donna whacked at him.

“Watch it, Time Boy!”

“I know!”

The Doctor got them through the open doors and shut them again with his back. Donna dropped down and put a few feet between them, smoothing down her dress and fanning her reddened face.

“You’re okay?” He asked.

“Yeah. Can’t believe I didn’t break you in half.” Donna hobbled up the ramp in one shoe, the other lost back in the woods somewhere. “Can we go? I know they can’t get in, but—”

“Of course.” The Doctor brushed past her to reach the controls. The Doctor studied her reflection in the blank monitor screen for a moment; she had her arms folded over her chest, and her shoulders were hunched.

“Donna?” He asked once the dematerialization sequence had been completed. “What happened back there?”

He turned around in time to see her tense. “I don’t know. One minute it’s all ‘oh, have some warm clothes, dear’, and the next they’re locking me up.”

“Elizabeth said something about a sign of the Devil.”

She looked at him with an arched brow. “What, and you believe that?”

“Well, not in so many words, but what did she mean by that?”

“Search me!” Donna shrugged. “I guess I must have said something or done something, and it scared them. I don’t know.” Her irritation gave way to exhaustion as she heaved a sigh and turned away from him. “I don’t really want to talk about it right now, Doctor.”

Oh, now he’d done it. Completely overlooked her own feelings in his bid for knowledge. Typical.

He ringed around the console to face her before she could leave the room. “Donna, I didn’t mean to blame you for what happened. I’m just trying to understand where things went wrong, so I know how to protect you better— not that I think you can’t defend yourself,” he hastened to add. “You’re perfectly capable. Brilliant at it, in fact, but—”

Donna was shaking her head, yet she was smiling, which seemed to indicate he hadn’t completely put his foot in his mouth. His babbling was cut off when she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder. The Doctor returned her hug scarcely without thought, drawing her as close to himself as possible. If he could provide her with half the comfort that she did, he’d consider it the greatest accomplishment in all his years.

“This was supposed to be good for you, and I just muffed it,” she said.

“Donna, this wasn’t your fault,” he repeated. It only figured she’d forget her own pain.

“No, but between Midnight and this you must think we’re awful.”

“Humans?” He felt her nod. “I’d never think humans were all awful. If only cos you’re one.”

Donna turned her face to the side and tucked her head under his chin. He suspected it was to try and hide her pleased smile. A matching one spread across his own lips. The Doctor knew this embrace wouldn’t last, but he was loathe to end it before she did.

So he went on. “It could have been anything. Humans from that time have so much to learn. They hadn’t even gotten gravity figured out. Naturally they’d be a superstitious.”

“Tell me about it. Probably set that lady off just being ginger.”

“Set her off in a fit of jealous rage,” he insisted, which Donna snorted at. “Luckily you’re safe now.” He reached up, and, with a gentle tug, the disheveled bonnet she was wearing came off and Donna’s hair spilled out. She tilted her head back to meet his eyes, and the Doctor swallowed once at the look that was in them. The bonnet fell to the floor.

“You don’t need to worry about me, Spaceman,” Donna murmured.

His own voice came out lower and softer than he’d meant to, and yet it seemed appropriate as he was fairly sure one wrong step might fracture this quiet, still space they’d entered. “It’s a bit late for that, I’m afraid.”

His lips felt nearly as dry as his mouth, and he wet them with the top of his tongue. Donna watched through hooded eyes. Had her eyelashes always been that long? Was it not enough that her eyes be mesmerizing, they had to be mesmerizing even when closed?

The Doctor couldn’t bring himself to even blink. He was sure if he did, all this would disappear like the dream it had to be. Only in a dream would it be possible for time to dilate like this as his head bent down and Donna’s hands clenched in his shirt collar.

And then, for no reason at all, Donna started ringing.

They jumped back, both rather startled, but Donna gave an “Oh!” and reached down the front of her dress. He didn’t quite manage to look away before she glanced up and caught him. “You think colonial dresses come with pockets?”

“Er, no?”

It was a mobile she’d retrieved, which was still ringing away. “Mum,” Donna sighed. “I’ve been putting off calling her. I should probably take this.”

“Right, of course,” said the Doctor, somehow managing a neutral tone. Donna looked up and there was something stricken in her smile before she gathered up her skirts and turned away.

“Yeah, mum?”

He’d never hated Sylvia Noble more in his life, which was honestly saying something.

The Doctor only had time to straighten out his collar before Donna’s uneven footsteps echoed back down the corridor. He looked up just as she stopped with the phone still held to her ear. Donna teetered on the balls of her feet for a moment before bending to snatch up the bonnet.

“Yeah, I’m listening,” she said into the phone, darting another look at him with a warm red glow rising in her cheeks. She hurried away again, her one shoe slapping the floor with every other step.

The Doctor blew out a breath and turned to drop into the jump seat. That had been...well, things had gone perhaps past the point of return. Why was it he only ever remembered the boundary that was supposed to be there  _ after _ he nearly broke it?

But Donna had been just as much a party to that. That’s what really changed things. He’d known and been grateful for how much she cared for him, of course, only he hadn’t dared to hope it extended beyond the bounds of friendship. That while Donna might be wanting a relationship, it wasn’t with him. Only it seemed he was the one who had missed something this time.

He thought he ought to be elated. Donna returned some type of feelings and seemed to find the idea of him attractive, so to speak. But it changed nothing of why they needed a boundary. It didn’t change the name on his back and the lie he had told.

There were only two choices available, two ways that time could move forward: try to hold Donna at arm's length however futilely, or tell her the truth and see what she made of it.

His instinct was the former; he was a man of secrets and had been for centuries now. Donna would have to assume the worst about his mark, wouldn’t she? And then she’d leave him. If he said nothing, pretended as if what had almost transpired between them never happened, she might stay on a little longer. Even if it hurt her.

Dragging her around, Josiah had claimed. Maybe he had been. About the only thing those Puritans had gotten right, in the end. The Doctor could very well end up hurt from either course of action, but he could only think of one that would be fair to Donna.

She knew him so well already. Surely she would be willing to hear him out?

He would take her somewhere special, somewhere with no trouble. It had to be the perfect destination, combining all her various interests. A trip tailor-made for Donna Noble. The Doctor thought it over. Donna liked seeing new places and people, she liked a good leisurely stroll, and she liked shopping. 

Shan Shen! The marketplace in Shan Shen was absolutely  _ perfect _ . He wondered why he hadn’t thought to take Donna there before.

Perhaps he could get her something while they were there. He was sure she would find something she’d like, be it jewelry or some other type of accessory. Something that complimented her, brought out her natural beauty, and made his intentions clear.

And then when they retired to the TARDIS library or one of the lounges for tea, he would tell her. He would ask for her understanding like so many times before and explain the whole soulmate mark mess. How it had begun as a way to avoid confusion and how it had simply become more complicated over time. That it changed nothing of how he felt, and that rather he had grown to love her in spite of it. She meant far more than a name to him; she meant everything.

It would all be decided tomorrow, and he would end the day either happier than he’d known he could be or at a new low he suspected might be unrecoverable. And there was no running from it.

The Doctor rose from the jump seat and retreated into the corridors. On his way, he passed Donna’s room. The door was slightly ajar and he could hear her pacing about, still on the phone with Sylvia.

“I’m not wasting my time in the middle of nowhere, mum. I’ve never done more with my time! And I’ve never been happier. Really.” There was a pause. “Yes, I’m still with the Doctor. And before you ask, that’s not changing anytime soon.”

He felt himself smile but forced himself to move on. Donna would be the opposite of happy to find him eavesdropping.

But it was enough to build a hope on.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so I had a good bit of time over Thanksgiving break to write and thus this chapter is coming at you hopefully much sooner than you were expecting. This chapter spans the events of "Turn Left" and I do not claim to own any canon dialogue. I don't want to reveal anything, so I'll just say thanks again to my beta colorofmymind and to all of you who read, comment, kudos, and bookmark. Please enjoy!

Donna woke half-curled up on her side on top of the covers and with her phone still plastered to her cheek. Her mother had kept her up most of the night talking and eventually she’d laid down only interjecting with the occasional “Yeah” or “Mm-hm”, and she must have drifted off at some point.

She was still wearing the shift she’d been given by the Puritans before they’d decided to have her executed. She’d struggled out of the top layers of the dress before nodding off. Donna stood and undid the ties on it, allowing the garment to join its fellows in a crumpled heap on the floor. She continued on to her en suite and started the water for a bath. She deserved it after the day she’d had yesterday.

Donna sank into the bath with a sigh, her body relaxing even if her mind didn’t. Because once she left the relative safety of her room, she’d have to face what almost happened last night.

She slid down until just her nose poked out over the water. What had she been thinking? Get rid of the mark,  _ then  _ make the move. Not, well,  _ that. _

He hadn’t been helping, of course, what with those brown eyes and soft words and holding her just as long. Did he not get she was in a crisis here?

Would the Doctor be expecting them to pick up right where they’d left off before her mum rang? Donna couldn’t put him off — and didn’t  _ want  _ to — without making it seem like she wasn’t interested. Then she would miss her chance. But if things moved too quickly, she wouldn’t have a chance to get her mark removed.

Then again, she knew the Doctor would never pressure her for more than she was prepared to give. He just wasn’t the sort. As long as Donna didn’t lose her head, they could start this whatever it was now, then she could find someplace to have the removal done, and afterwards they could move things forward at whatever pace suited them.

Relief swept through her at having solved things. Maybe she was a little brilliant like he said. Donna washed up, then hurried back into her room to get dressed. She wasn’t sure if it was excitement or nerves that had her so eager to find her Spaceman, but she didn’t want to give the doubt even a moment to creep in.

Locating the Doctor proved to be easier said than done. He wasn’t in the console room, for a start, and when Donna took the corridor leading to the library, she didn’t find him either.

“Doctor?” Had he gone off to sleep somewhere? She’d never gotten an answer to where his room was. That was changing.

But she heard the kettle whistle as she passed the kitchen. Poking her head in, she spotted the Doctor at the stove. “Been looking for you.”

He turned around, grinning. Donna had to bite her lip to keep from doing so as well. God, and she’d thought she could wait. “Good morning! Breakfast won’t be a minute.”

He’d set everything up as if just waiting for her arrival to begin. Donna could get rather used to that. Soon enough there were eggs sizzling and toast popping out of toaster, both of which he served to her on a plate.

“Bit on the light side. Don’t want to spoil your appetite.” The Doctor hadn’t even made anything for himself, and instead took the skillet over to the sink to start the washing up. She wondered if he just couldn’t sit still.

“And why not?” 

“I’ve got just the trip for you today,” he said over his shoulder.

“Oh?”

“Yep. Called the Shan Shen market. Brilliant place! Booths all up and down the main streets selling anything you can imagine. And the food! Oh, you’re gonna love it.”

He went on babbling about their upcoming trip just like any morning. Was that it? They weren’t even going to talk about what had happened? Did he think she didn’t want to because she’d run off? Or did he not want to? Was he trying to pretend it  _ hadn’t _ happened?

“Finished your tea?” He was stood by her chair all of a sudden, and she blinked.

“Sure. You haven’t even touched yours.” Donna prodded at the second mug she had prepared across from hers.

“I’ll get something there,” he dismissed, then took both of her hands to pull her up from the chair. “Off we go, then. Allons-y!”

It was hard not to get swept up in his enthusiasm even if Donna had about a million questions flying through her head, and it was even harder once they’d exited the TARDIS into a totally new world. There were cars flying hundreds of feet in the air!

They made their way through the small crowd of people milling about the booths, and Donna thought she’d lost him for a moment before the Doctor returned to her side with two foaming mugs. He looked practically giddy as he passed one to her.

Donna tried to beg off. “I’d rather have a water.”

“You are going to love it,” he insisted. “One, two, three.” They both raised the mugs to their lips and took a gulp. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but it was sort of sweet with just a hint of spice.

“Lovely!” Donna couldn’t help a laugh, both at the surprise of how delicious the drink was and the foam that had gotten on his upper lip.

They finished their drinks while they walked along. Donna wouldn’t mind a couple passes back and forth; there was just so much to see!

“You have to get something while we’re here,” he insisted, steering her towards one of the booths. “Nobody ever leaves Shan Shen without a souvenir.”

“Didn’t know you bought into that sort of thing,” she remarked but dutifully began scanning the items on display. This particular vendor looked to specialize in jewelry. Donna browsed through the necklaces and picked up one to examine. It was a simple cord with something round and smooth like a pearl on the end, about the size of a golfball. It was a sort of blueish color with a dark center.

“That’s not a bad pick.” The Doctor placed his hand over hers and began tilting it and the necklace she held. “They call it the sunflower stone, because if it catches the light just right…”

“Oh!” The edge around the darkened center shone bright gold. Donna looked round to find him smiling at her.

“Good, isn’t it? Excuse me,” he called to the merchant manning this particular booth, who looked to be finishing up a sale.

“Are we interested in buying something today?”

“Yes, how much for the necklace?”

The merchant held out a hand and Donna obligingly passed the it over. “This? Ah yes, the hidden beauty. Found it at the bottom of the ocean, polished by the waves and sand for thousands of years before that. A very good choice for the lady, sir. I will not part with it for less than five-hundred.”

“Five-hundred?” The Doctor made a face but reached into his coat. Donna’s eyes went wide as she grabbed at his arm.

“No,  _ no _ , you are not spending that much on me.”

He arched an eyebrow. “No?”

“No,” she repeated.

The Doctor nodded, but, rather than leave, he turned back to the merchant. “You heard the lady. You’re asking too much. Why not halve it?”

“Half? Absolutely not,” the man said.

“Well, we’ve got a problem, then, because — do you see her eyes?” Donna pressed her lips together and hoped to God she wasn’t blushing as the Doctor gestured to her. “Rings of gold just the same. They’re a perfect match. I mean, you can’t imagine finding someone more suited for it, can you?” He gave an exaggerated shrug. “You see the problem? I just  _ have _ to have it for her.”

There was a pause as the merchant clearly considered, then bit out, “450.”

The Doctor was already shaking his head. “Oh, come  _ on _ ! 300.”

Donna walked on as the Doctor continued to haggle. She wasn’t sure she’d survive hearing him go on about her eyes twice in a row. Truth be told she couldn’t believe he’d just done it a first time!

This was...this was a date, wasn’t it? Maybe neither of them had said it, but that’s what they were doing. Here, at the beach, even Agatha Christie and the 20s had started out this same way. Only now there was an energy, an intent that hadn’t been there before that near-kiss last night.

Donna had worried he was trying to let her down, and it turned out he was just trying to do this properly. She looked back at him haggling away and allowed a full find smile to spread across her face. 

Tonight, she’d tell him how she felt — or maybe he would; who knew what he had planned next? — and the first chance she got she’d ask to visit home. Donna knew she could count on Gramps to keep her Spaceman occupied while she pretended to run an errand for her mum. She’d have to call ahead, and she had a bit of money saved up — not like she was using it traveling the universe — and she could have the removal done and put that whole mess behind her. Her future was with the Doctor, and Donna wasn’t about to lose that for anything. With a determined nod, Donna walked on.

A woman called out to her, a fortune teller. “Your life predicted, the future foretold.”

“Oh, no thanks,” said Donna.

“Don't you want to know if you're going to be happy?”

“I'm happy right now, thanks.”

The woman wouldn’t let up, though, and when she offered to do it for free Donna relented. Maybe she was hoping to drum up some business, and it’d be a new experience at the least.

For being on a totally different planet, it seemed fortune telling worked pretty similarly to Earth. There was the little round table, the cloth draped over everything, and the first thing the woman did was take her hand and start reading her palm. About the only thing missing was the crystal ball.

“I can see...a man.”

Donna couldn’t help a scoff. Typical. At least she hadn’t paid anything!

“The most remarkable man,” the fortune teller continued. “For a most remarkable woman. Two halves coming together, drawn by fate—”

“Yeah, we’re not actually soulmates,” Donna decided to help her out.

“Then how did you meet him?”

“You’re supposed to tell me.”

The fortune teller looked up from her palm. “I see the future. Tell me the past. When did your lives cross?”

“It’s sort of complicated,” said Donna. “I don’t know anything about fate, but I ended up in a spaceship on my wedding day. Long story.”

“But what led you to that meeting?” The woman pressed.

Donna shrugged. “All sorts of things. But my job, I suppose. It was on Earth, this planet called Earth, miles away. But I had this job as a temp. I was a secretary at a place called HC Clements.”

It was like suddenly she was  _ at _ HC Clements again, sitting at that old desk and Lance across the way, pointing at the coffee machine. Donna swayed and came back to herself in the tent.

“Oh, sorry.”

“It’s the incense,” the fortune teller told her. “Just breathe deep. This job of yours? What choices led you there?”

“There was a choice, six months before,” she said, and she could see it again. Her and her mum sitting in the car nattering on about Mr. Chowdry and his photocopy business. Only she could hear the fortune teller, too.

“Your life could have gone one way or the other. What made you decide?”

“I just did.” Donna didn’t like this much anymore. Something felt off. Why was she being so insistent? Why did it matter how she’d met the Doctor?

“But  _ when _ was the moment? When did you choose?”

She couldn’t focus properly. It was like there were two conversations happening at once, her mum in the car and the fortune teller both urging her to turn right. “Stop it,” Donna said, not sure to whom she said it to.

Something latched onto her shirt. “What’s that?” She asked, trying to turn around, but the woman wouldn’t let go of her hands. “What’s on my back?”

“Make the choice again, Donna Noble, and change your mind,” the fortune teller commanded. “Turn right.”

Donna didn’t know what had come over her. There was something on her back, but she couldn’t see it, and she couldn’t remember why she  _ hadn’t _ turned right anymore. She heard herself speak. “I’m turning…”

—-

Donna sat in the car wondering why she’d even offered her mum a lift on the way to the agency. Probably because it was her mum’s car. She really needed to look into getting one of her own. Maybe a Smart?

Her idle wondering couldn’t completely drown out her mother’s tirade, of course. Donna was pretty sure nothing could.

“Well, let me tell you, sweetheart. City executives don't need temps, except for practice,” said her mother. “Your time’ll be up soon as they’ve met their soulmate, then the job will be over, too.”

Did she always have to remind her? It wasn’t her fault she didn’t have someone’s name she could expect to run into someday. A little fun here and there was all she reasonably aim for.

But was that what she wanted? Her forties were fast approaching, as her mum also liked to bring up constantly. Fooling around would have to stop eventually. And if she couldn’t hope for a husband, than she might as well have a career to point to whenever someone asked what she was doing with her life.

“Yeah,” Donna sighed. “Suppose you’re right.” She switched the turn signal and made the right towards Griffin’s Parade and Mr. Chowdry’s.

She actually landed the job at his photocopy place and before six months was up had been promoted to personal assistant. Her mum really had been right after all! It was nice not having her calling up nagging all the time, nice not worrying about how she was going to cover the rent once her time at this or that office was up. She had roots, if not in a personal life then in a professional one.

Donna went out with some mates on Christmas Eve. What, just because she didn’t much like the holidays didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy a good drink! It was a good bit of fun; Nerys couldn’t make it, and Donna even surprised herself with her goodwill by buying a couple rounds for their table.

She couldn’t help noticing Alice acting a bit funny, though. “What's wrong? What is it?”   


Alice blinked. “Sorry?”

“Did someone spill a drink on me?”    


“Why?” Asked Alice, as if she had know idea what Donna was talking about.   


“Why do you keep looking at my shoulder? What's wrong?”    


“I don't know.”   


Donna rolled her eyes. “Oh, don't tell me you're getting all spooky again. It was bad enough when you saw the ghost of Earl Mountbatten at the boat show. What are you looking at? What is it?”   


“It's like,” Alice struggled for a moment, then continued, “it's like there's something I can't see.”

Then a man burst into the pub shouting about a Christmas star, so of course they all had to go see what he was on about or if he was just drunk.

But sure enough, there was a something. It was huge and silver, just hanging in the air above them. Donna wasn’t sure if that was tinsel supposed to be covering it. It looked more like webbing. Regardless, it was incredible and impossible...and Donna felt like she’d seen it before. Was it from some movie?

“That's not a star. That's a web,” she stated with a confidence she didn’t know she had. “It's heading east. Middle of the City.”

Then electricity began shooting from the star and Donna found herself in a movie. Part of the faceless crowd getting killed, that figured.

She was about to run for cover like all the rest, but when she looked over her shoulder Alice was staring at her again. “Alice! There's a great big web star thing shooting at people, and you're looking at me?”

Alice met her eyes, looking horrified. “There is something on your back.” Then she ran for it.

Donna watched her go, then looked back at the star. What was going on? Why did she feel like she’d been through this before? She began to walk, unheeding of Veena’s calls for her to come back.

Her feet led her down to Canary Wharf. There were soldiers in red berets and tanks and a barricade. They fired on the star, and it finally stopped shooting electricity. Donna walked all the way to the edge of the barricade. People were being warned to keep back, but she didn’t listen like the rest of them. She snuck around the back of a truck and watched as one of the soldiers spoke into a radio.

“From the evidence, I'd say he managed to stop the creature. Some sort of red spider. Blew up the base underneath the barrier, flooded the whole thing. Over.”    


_“And where is he now? Over.”_   


“We found a body, sir. Over.”    


_ “Is it him? Over.” _   


“I think so. He just didn't make it out in time.”

There was a stretcher being wheeled out that they’d laid a sheet over. As it was jerked to a halt in order to be lifted, a man’s arm fell out from under the sheet, a strange little pen that had been in his hand clattering to the ground.

“The Doctor is dead.” The soldier on the radio said some other things, but Donna found she wasn’t really listening. She could only stare until the body had been loaded into the back of the ambulance and the doors had slammed shut. Then she backed away from the horrible sight.

Why had she come out here? Anything could have happened to her.  _ She _ could have died. But something had drawn her just as it was now repelling her.

She was so lost in thought she nearly didn’t notice the woman running towards her until she was upon her.

“What happened? What did they find?” She stopped just a few paces beyond Donna. “I'm sorry, did they find someone?”

“I don't know,” said Donna, still in a bit of a daze. “A bloke called the Doctor, or something.”

“Well, where is he?” The woman demanded. She was young and blonde, Donna noted.

“They took him away. He's dead.” The look on the other woman’s face had her asking, “I'm sorry, did you know him? I mean, they didn't say his name. Could be any doctor.”    


“I came so far.”   


“It- it could be anyone,” Donna tried to reassure her again.

The woman seemed to be trying to shake it off. “What's your name?”    


“Donna. And you?”    


“Oh, I was just passing by. I shouldn't even be here. This is wrong. This is so wrong.” Donna couldn’t help agreeing with her, though she said nothing aloud. She’d just noticed the woman kept trying to glance over her shoulder. “Sorry, what was it? Donna what?”    


“Why do you keep looking at my back?”    


“I'm not,” the blonde immediately insisted, even as she continued to do so.

“Yes, you are. You keep looking behind me. You're doing it now. What is it? What's there? Did someone put something on my back?”

She turned her head to check herself and when she looked back the blonde woman was gone. Donna hadn’t even heard her walk away.

When she finally made it back to her parents’ home it was late, but she found them both awake watching the news.

“There she is.” Her dad stood and wrapped her in a hug. “Your mum’s been worrying.”

Barely had he let her go when her mum started right up. “Veena phoned. Said you ran down to the wharf. What were you thinking? You could’ve been hurt. ”

“That was all done by the time I got there. I don’t know why I had to,” Donna confessed. “Guess I just wanted to see.”

“Well it wasn’t safe,” Her mother chided. “They’re saying the Thames has completely drained.”

“I know. There was a man they pulled out. He- he drowned — sorry, I don’t know why I’m crying about it all of a sudden.” Her dad had passed her his handkerchief, and she dabbed at her eyes. “Must have just hit me.”

“It’s a dreadful thing,” her father said as he patted her arm. “Drowned. Well he must have been caught up in it too fast to get himself out, poor fellow.”

It was the strangest thing. Donna couldn’t explain how, but for a brief second she wasn’t at home with her parents. Instead she was standing in some room made of concrete while water poured all around her, shouting up at someone, “Doctor! You can stop now!”

She came back to herself with a shake of the head. What had that been about?

“Donna, love, you alright?”

“Yeah, dad. Just tired. I think I’ll turn in early.”

Donna had the strangest dream that night. There was a man she’d never seen before standing in front of her and holding her hands. His eyes had been brown and full of warmth, but his smile had seemed sad all the same.

“Thank you, Donna Noble. It’s been brilliant. You’ve- you’ve saved my life in so many ways.”

There’d been the same soldiers in red berets standing behind him, and before she’d been able to ask, his hands had slipped out of hers, and he’d begun walking away.

“Hang on, what do you mean? Who are you? Where are you going?”

She’d watched him climb into the back of an ambulance and the soldiers drive him away, and it had felt wrong. Donna hadn’t been able to shake the thought that she was supposed to be there, too, wherever he was going. How was she supposed to save him if he up and left?

Of course upon waking up crying, Donna realized how ridiculous the whole thing was. She must have been all worked up from what she’d seen the night before. When had she ever done anything important, much less saved someone’s life?

She wiped at her eyes and splashed cold water on her face before heading downstairs for Christmas morning. There wasn’t much special about it; with Gramps stuck in hospital across the river there wasn’t really anyone to get them all in the spirit. They phoned him, of course, and passed presents around the table, and that was that. Same old life. Why had she expected that to change all of a sudden?

“There’s been nothing on the news about him,” Donna said a few days later. “That man they pulled out. I thought maybe I’d go to the service.” Maybe that blonde woman would be there and Donna could get her name and ask why she’d been staring at her back funny.

“He might’ve been homeless,” her mother suggested.

“I don’t think so. They called him a doctor.”

“Who did?”

“The soldiers that pulled him out.”

“Well how’d they know him?”

“How should I know?” Donna shrugged. “Not like I knew him.”

Donna soon forgot about him when her father’s diagnosis came back terminal. They tried treatments, of course, but though Donna tried to keep a positive attitude she just somehow knew. She was going to lose her dad.

Eventually, they simply brought him home from hospital and tried to make him comfy. Her mum hardly left his side, and once Donna heard him say, “That’s all I need, Sylvie.”

She took time off to make the funeral arrangements and stood with her mother all through the service and after at the grave. “Is it...worse?” She couldn’t help asking, despite something telling her she already knew the answer. “Knowing you were…?”

“I wouldn’t change a minute,” said her mother, eyes fixed on the headstone. Then she turned and left without another word.

Donna supposed her mother was right. After all, her father had had his soulmate and the family they’d built together with him to the very end. Could she ever hope to have that whenever it was her turn? Her job wasn’t about to hold her hand through it all.

It took ages for her to get to sleep that night, too caught up in grief and her own morbid wonderings. The pillow she cried into morphed into a man’s chest in her dreams, and the soothing beat of his heart with its strange rhythm finally let her drift off to a restful sleep. When she woke up without an arm wrapped around her or a hand rubbing her back in comfort, she felt lonelier than ever. She chalked it up to the mourning process and tried to forget about it.

Turned out her job wasn’t even going to hold her hand through next year. Donna barely got back into her routine before Mr. Chowdry was giving her the news she was being let go. She didn’t bother making a graceful exit — not like she’d be seeing any of those useless idiots ever again — and made sure to pack up whatever fit into the box she was given to collect her things.

She’d moved back home to help with her dad and now it seemed she’d be staying there a good while longer. Donna didn’t know how to feel about her mother’s apathy towards the whole situation, but she supposed she ought to be grateful it wasn’t causing a row.

Her Gramps didn’t seem to even register she’d been sacked; he was too engrossed in the news report about that hospital that had supposedly vanished and then came back. Aliens was his theory of course, which she and her mother both shot down.

“I am telling you it is getting worse, these past few years,” he insisted. “It's like, all of a sudden, they suddenly know all about us, and there's keen eyes up there and they're watching us, and they're not friendly.”

Donna volunteered to go out for chips just for something to do. Before she could make it very far, there was a flash of light and a loud noise up ahead, and a woman came running out in front of her. “Blimey! Are you alright? What was that, fireworks or—?”

She stopped, unable to believe her eyes for a minute. It was the same blonde woman from Christmas Eve!

She hardly seemed all that surprised to see Donna, asking her how she was and her eyes immediately drifting to her shoulder again.

“You’re doing it again,” Donna decided to tell her.

Things only proceeded to get weirder. The woman wanted to know what she was doing for Christmas, then suggested a getaway for her and her family.

“Can’t afford it,” Donna said bluntly.

“Well, no, you got that raffle ticket.”

Donna stiffened. “How do you know about that?”

“First prize, luxury weekend break. Use it, Donna Noble.”

“Why won’t you tell me your name?” Donna asked instead. The woman wouldn’t answer. “I think you should leave me alone,” she said, then turned and walked away.

Donna went back home and tried to put the whole strange meeting out of her mind. It must have been a lucky guess, her knowing about the raffle. It wasn’t like Donna had seen her following her around or anything. It was nothing.

She had a dream that night that Gramps met an alien and shook his hand. He kept showing it to her with a look of sheer wonder on his face. When Donna woke up, she tried to put that out of her mind, too.

In the end, Donna took the blonde’s advice. Not because she was worried or anything. Just that a luxury weekend break sounded nice. They could use that, the year they were having.

The hotel was brilliant. Their room was a bit of a squeeze, and poor Gramps ended up on the sofa, but it was a nice break away from home. She woke up early on Christmas morning, a first since she was a very young girl, and was getting ready for the day before either he or her mum had even woken up. She didn’t know why she was in such a good mood on Christmas of all days; maybe it was just that nice dream she’d had where some strange man had made it snow for her.

Her family had roused enough by the time the maid knocked with their breakfast, and she asked grandad to get the door while she finished fixing her hair.

The maid wheeled a whole cart in for them while her mum was going on about whatever program she had on the telly.

“Because I thought, nice early breakfast, and then we'll go for a walk. People always say that at Christmas. Oh, we all went for a walk. I've always wanted to do that. So, walk first, presents later, yeah?” She smiled at the thought, though none of her family appeared to have listened at all. Typical.

“Tienes algo en tu espalda.”

Donna turned around. “What?” Their maid was standing in the open doorway of the bathroom.

“Donna, look at the telly,” said her mother.

“Tienes algo en tu espalda,” the maid repeated. She was staring at Donna with the same kind of horror as Alice last Christmas.

“What does that mean? I don’t know what you’re saying,” she tried to explain.

“Tienes algo en tu espalda!” The maid shouted again, then turned and ran from the room. Donna could only stare.

“For God’s sake, Donna,” her mum said. “Don’t just stand there, come and look.”

_ “The object is falling on Central London. I repeat, this is not a hoax. A replica of the Titanic is falling out of the sky, and it's heading for Buckingham Palace. We're getting this footage from the Guinevere range of satellites.” _

“Is that a film or something?” Donna asked. How could it possibly be real?

_ “The Royal Air Force has declared an emerg—” _ The broadcast cut off abruptly and seconds later the whole room shook.

They went outside with everyone else, and there was a towering cloud of smoke rising in the distance. Donna couldn’t believe it.

“I was supposed to be out there selling papers,” Gramps was saying. “I should have been there. We all should. We'd be dead.”   


“That's everyone. Every single person we know. The whole city,” said her mum.    


Donna shook her head. “Can't be.”    


“But it is. It's gone. London's  _ gone _ .”    


Her Gramps looked at her. “If you hadn't won that raffle.”

The only reason she’d even entered it was because of that blonde...how had she known? Why had she warned her? When Donna looked over her shoulder, she saw the same maid from before staring right at her and pointing at her back.

Eventually, people began going back into their hotel rooms. Her family trailed in, still in a daze. Her mum began desperately calling up anybody she could get a hold of while her Gramps sat and watched the news with tears in his eyes. Donna didn’t know what to do with herself. London was a mushroom cloud, and all that maid had been able to do was stare at  _ her _ . Just what did that mean?

People kept saying things, looking at her back odd. The only strange thing Donna could think of on her back was that stupid old mark — oh God, had people been catching sight of that? She’d thought for sure all her shirts and sweaters covered it up completely.

Donna retreated into the bathroom and stood facing away from the mirror, her hair tossed over one shoulder. She craned her neck to try and get a look, but her mark was definitely covered up. Donna tugged down on the hem of her sweater to see if maybe that was the problem, but—

“That’s not right,” she murmured. Donna hurriedly yanked the sweater over her head to get a proper look. Her mark was still there, but not all of it. Even if she had no bloody clue what it meant she’d had it long enough to know what it looked like. Some of the top circles were either totally or partially missing.

“Gramps?” She called, and the note of panic in her voice had him hurrying through the door.

“What is it, love?”

“Take a look at this. My mark, it’s not right. I mean less than usual.”

“Eh?” He stepped closer, peering at the strange symbols. “Looks smaller.”

“Yeah, some of it’s missing. Just gone. I don’t know when, but- but that’s not supposed to happen, is it? What’s it mean?”

Her grandad shrugged, at a loss. “Well, I don’t know, sweetheart. Never heard of that sort of thing before.”

Donna turned again to stare at it in the mirror. “But why’s it happening now? I mean what’s changed?”

Their stay at the hotel felt entirely short lived, even more so than it might have knowing they had nothing to return to. They were bundled instead into a hostel, overcrowded and grimy with barely enough food to go around. People were being put in queues for relocation, but it was longer for families that didn’t want to split up. The days seemed to drag on, with no one to talk to and nothing to do. Even if she hadn’t lost her job at poor Mr. Chowdry’s office, she’d have nowhere to work now. What were they going to do for money? The housing office didn’t seem to care; everybody knew the jobs were up in Glasgow, but where did they get sent? Bloody Leeds.

When they arrived in Leeds, they discovered they weren’t even to have a house to themselves. Practically another hostel. Rocco Colasantos introduced them all to his family and the Merchandanis with a cheer that might have grated on her were she not so exhausted. It said a lot that she was simply grateful to be able put her things down, even in their kitchen-turned-bedroom.

The narrow bathroom they were all going to share had a mirror at least. Donna shrugged out of her coat and examined her mark for the first time since they’d left the hotel. Even more of it had vanished into nothing, like it’d just been drawn in marker this whole time and was finally washing off. Donna reached back and touched the edge of it with her fingertips.

“Where are you going?” She wondered.

“Donna, I need the toilet.” Her mother knocked on the door causing it to swing open since she hadn’t shut it properly. “Are you still looking at that thing? What for?”

“Well it keeps disappearing, mum, look.”

Her mother didn’t bother, instead muttering, “Good riddance, if you ask me.”

“Yes, thank you mum,” said Donna, straightening out her shirt and pulling her coat on before she squeezed past her out of the bathroom.

“It’s just,” Donna whispered later in the darkened kitchen, her mother’s feet by her head as she laid on her stomach to face her Gramps. “I’ve lost my job, my home, everyone we know. I guess I figured I couldn’t lose anything else, but this...it feels like a part of me is just slipping away, and there’s nothing I can do.”

“I thought you weren’t interested in marks and all that. You said that stuff couldn’t be for you,” he reminded her.

“I know, but maybe I was wrong. I mean, something has to be making this happen.” A thought occurred to her. “You don’t think it’s cos he’s dead, do you? I don’t know when my mark started going away, but he could’ve been in London when that Titanic crashed.”

“Never known it to work that way, sweetheart. Look here.” He sat up, and Donna got onto her knees in order to see as he yanked down the collar of his shirt.

She smiled at the familiar letters. “Gran.”

“Same as ever.” Her grandad shuffled back around to look at her. “See, your grandmother passing on doesn’t change what she meant to me. If you let it, that person changes your whole world. You might pass them on the street and never know it unless you take that chance.”

Donna thought that over. “So you think I’ve lost my chance?”

Her Gramps shrugged. “I’ve no idea what to think.”

Donna kept track of her mark every day now. She wished she’d been paying attention to it before. Little by little it kept going away, like it was eroding. She sat down once with a spare bit of paper and tried to draw the whole thing, so she had some kind of record of it. It was clear in her mind, but the circles and whatnot were all nonsense to her and didn’t come out right whenever she tried to write it down.

“Ah, soulmates,” said Rocco with a knowing smile as he watched her failed attempts. Gramps had told him all about her problem to see if he had any ideas or heard of anything similar. He hadn’t, which Donna wasn’t much surprised by, but had begun asking around all their neighbors to see if anybody had a  _ Donna _ on their back.

“Back home, you name means  _ lady _ ,” he told her one evening over the scraps they’d all managed to put together for dinner. “Beautiful lady! So, we find you a lord, yes?”

Donna shook her head with a wan smile. “Not sure there’s many lords walking around these days.” That radiation poisoning in the south probably got most.

At night, she didn’t dream of any lords. Instead, there was that same stranger holding her hand or folding her into the kind of warm, safe hug she craved during the day. She would laugh with him, run with him, and very nearly manage to kiss him before being woken by the shouts of the Merchandani children or an army jeep rolling past the house. Donna found herself missing a friend she’d never had more than the ones she’d actually lost.

The promised aid from America never came. Instead, Donna sat with the others and watched alien fat fly up into a spaceship, the fat of sixty million people. The bizarre urge to wave nearly came over her. Donna retreated to the kitchen.

She couldn’t help privately wondering if her mother was right; nothing was ever going to get better. It all felt so pointless, like all they could do was watch and wait for the next disaster.

The whole house pulled together that night, trying to forget for a moment with a bit of singing, only for shots to ring out just outside. Donna followed closely behind her Gramps and Rocco to see a soldier firing on his own jeep as a thick cloud of gas spewed from the exhaust pipe. They couldn’t get it to stop, not even by turning the vehicle off.

Then one of the soldiers look at her with wide eyes. “You, lady. Turn round! Turn around now!”

He pointed his gun at her, and Donna froze. What had she done?

Everyone was shouting; the soldier, her Gramps and Rocco, her mum. He kept pointing his gun. Slowly, Donna turned to show him her back as he kept demanding, her eyes squeezed shut and her arms raised above her head.

“Sorry,” said the soldier. “I thought I saw…” He trailed off, at a loss.

Her grandad started to rip into him for that. It was about the angriest she’d ever seen him.

She might have stuck around to watch, but a familiar flash of light appeared at the bottom of the street. Donna left them all and walked down to it, paying no attention to her mother’s cries for her to come back. Around the corner, she found the blonde.

They walked a bit and sat on a bench, far enough away from any of the army jeeps to be able to breathe just a little easier. The woman explained about the ATMOS devices in the cars and that someone was about to take care of it. Then the sky lit up in flames before clearing completely, the gas gone.

“That was the Torchwood team,” the woman told her. “Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones, they gave their lives. And Captain Jack Harkness has been transported to the Sontaran home world. There's no one left.”   


Donna didn’t like to think about that. This was them when they still had defense? “You're always wearing the same clothes. Why won't you tell me your name?”   


“None of this was meant to happen,” was the blonde’s non-answer. “There was a man. This wonderful man, and he stopped it. The Titanic, the Adipose, the ATMOS, he stopped  them all from happening.    


Donna thought about it. There was only one man they sort of had in common, by a very loose interpretation. “That Doctor?”    


“You knew him.”   


Donna looked at her. “Did I? When?”    


“I think you dream about him sometimes. It's a man in a suit. Tall, thin man. Great hair,” She remarked. “Some really great hair.”

Donna frowned. How did the woman know what she was dreaming about?

“You've travelled with him, Donna. You've travelled with the Doctor in a different world.”    


“I never met him, and he's dead.”   


“He died underneath the Thames on Christmas Eve, but you were meant to be there. He needed someone to stop him, and that was you,” the woman said. “You made him leave. You saved his life.”

Donna had that same sudden flash of memory, the water raining down all around her in a wedding dress. “Doctor, you can stop now!” She could see the man more clearly now, great hair plastered to his forehead and water soaking his suit as he blinked down at her, like she’d broken him from some terrible trance.

She didn’t understand. She’d been  _ meant _ to meet him? Like...destiny?

But they weren’t meant to meet. He’d died. Donna had seen it. This woman wasn’t making any sense. She stood from the bench with the heels of her hands pressed to her temples. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Leave me alone.”

“Something’s coming, Donna. Something worse.”

She went on about other universes, and needing the Doctor even though he was dead, and something called the darkness, and it was all just  _ nonsense _ to her. As incomprehensible as what little remained of her mark.

“Well, what do you keep telling me for?” She finally burst out. “What am I supposed to do? I'm nothing special. I mean, I'm- I'm not. I'm nothing special. I'm a temp. I'm not even that. I'm  _ nothing _ .”    


The woman grinned at her, like this was all just some fun game they were playing. “Donna Noble, you're the most important woman in the whole of creation.”   


Donna shook her head, a nasty sort of smile twisting her lips. “Oh, don't. Just don't. I'm tired. I'm so tired.”

“I need you to come with me,” the blonde insisted.

“Yeah, but it’s not really about me, though, is it?”

That got a frown.

“Cause I figured it out,” Donna continued. “The ‘something on my back’. There isn’t anything.”

The woman leaned slightly to the side. “No,” she said, “not sure what you mean.”

“But it’s disappearing. And that’s what’s different about me, that’s what makes me special or whatever, cause that’s not supposed to happen. Just take a look,” she demanded, pulling at the collar of her coat.

The blonde circled around behind her, slow and sort of wary, then peered down her shirt. “Hold on. This is your mark?”

“Used to be bigger,” Donna told her. “More circles. I could never figure out what they meant, cause they’re nothing like an alphabet.”

“I don’t think they’re even human,” the woman murmured.

“Wait, are you saying my mark’s in alien? Like all those things that have been coming here?” With her luck, her soulmate was one of the ones made out of fat.

“I didn’t know this could happen,” said the blonde, and when Donna looked back the other woman was blinking heavily, as if to stave off tears. “I thought it translated. It has to.”

“Wait, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” the woman said quickly. Then she turned and began hurrying away. “Uh, three weeks, Donna!” She called back in reminder. Before Donna could say anything else, she faded away right in front of her. Like she’d never been there.

Donna couldn’t understand it. She’d thought she had figured out why this lady kept after her, only it turned out her vanishing mark had nothing to do with it.

Three weeks later they took the Colasantos away. Donna thought the image of them in that truck, so resigned and hopeless as it drove off faster than she could run, would never leave her. Nor would her grandfather’s tears. They’d been innocent people, what did it matter that they weren’t English enough for some?

Donna knew it wouldn’t stop there, either. Hadn’t they gotten this spot because the last family missed a payment? They needed money. But the representative she spoke with at the army said she wasn’t qualified and sent her on her way.

She told her mother, who barely left her bed anymore, as much when she got back to the house. “You were right. You said I should’ve worked harder at school. I suppose I’ve always been a disappointment.”

If anything could get her up and in spirits, it had to be that, right? Donna knew her mum could never resist having a go at her, particularly when she knew she was right.

But she didn’t even turn around. “Yeah.”

She found her grandfather out back with his telescope, one of the few possessions they’d managed to hang onto. If there was any benefit to all this, he didn’t need to climb a hill to stargaze; there wasn’t much light pollution in Britain anymore.

He didn’t ask about her job hunt; he could probably already tell by the look on her face.

“How’s your mark?”

“Almost gone,” she sighed. “Figures. He must have seen where my life was going and said ‘No thanks’. Not like I can do anything right, anyway.” She looked at him as he fiddled with the telescope. “I always imagined, your old age, I'd have put a bit of money by. Make you comfy. Never did. I'm just useless.” 

He didn’t reply. 

Donna narrowed her eyes. “You're supposed to say, no you're not.”

“Ha, it must be the alignment.” He kept fiddling with the telescope, growing increasingly agitated.

“What’s wrong?”

He had her look through the lens, but all Donna could see was darkness even as her Gramps insisted he’d had it pointed at Orion.

“It was there. An entire constellation. Your mark’s not the only thing going missing.” He sat back and gaped up at the dark sky. “Oh, my God! Donna, look. The stars are going out.”

She didn’t have to search very far for the blonde woman. When she found her, all Donna said was, “I’m ready.”

She was lead to a Land Rover, and they were driven away from Leeds. The whole journey to wherever they were going, the blonde kept sneaking glances at her.

“What?” Donna asked when her patience inevitably snapped.

“Sorry, it’s just. I should say sorry.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re coming with me, Donna, and sorry, so sorry, but you’re going to die.”

They arrived at a warehouse. It was filled with more of those soldiers in their red berets and some scientists in lab coats. There was a circle of mirrors and a few feet behind that some blue box that Donna couldn’t seem to stop looking at, even when a woman stepped forward and saluted the blonde at her side.

“Ma’am.”

The woman dismissed the officer’s — Captain Erisa Magambo — formality, though it turned out the reason for the captain’s address was that she didn’t know the blonde’s name either. Apparently that was because of not wanting to wreck things with realities by saying too much, though Donna didn’t get why she’d told her so much about a dead Doctor she was supposed to have met, then.

The blonde and Captain Magambo started discussing whether something was awake. That turned out to be the blue box. There were a bunch of wires and cables running out of the doors and to the circle of mirrors which Donna thought she ought not to touch, but the blonde told her to go inside the box anyway.

Donna did. “No  _ way _ .”

She couldn’t believe it, and had to dart in and out a few times just to confirm what she was seeing. How did that huge room fit inside that little box? It was too weird!

Donna had another flash of memory; this time the man in the suit was walking along at her side and saying, “It’s bigger on the inside, that’s all.”

Had she really done this before?

The blonde woman told her about the ship, that it had belonged to the Doctor and was dying without him. The whole world seemed to be dying without him, and Donna still couldn’t quite wrap her head around someone like that needing someone like her.

“Do you want to see it?” The blonde asked her, nodding to her back.

“No,” was her first answer. But she’d come all this way, and for whatever reason everything was going to get worse if she didn’t go through with it. “Oh, go on.”

She was led into the circle of mirrors and told to stand there as they activated it. For a moment Donna was blinded by the lights, but as she blinked the spots away she caught sight of her reflection — and the giant insect hanging onto her back.

Her breathing picked up, and she tried to hold back the panic as the woman explained.

“It feeds off time by changing time. By making someone's life take a different turn, like er, meetings never made, children never born, a life never loved. But with you, it's—”

“But I never did anything important.”

“Yeah, you did. One day, that thing made you turn right instead of left.”

Donna tried to think. Turning right? How many times had she done that? “When was that?”

“Oh, you wouldn't remember. It was the most ordinary day in the world. But by turning right, you never met the Doctor, and the whole world just changed around you.”

For some reason, Gramps’ words came back to her:  _ “If you let it, that person changes your whole world. You might pass them on the street and never know it unless you take that chance.” _

“I didn’t lose my chance,” she realized.

The blonde looked up. “What?”

“I didn’t lose my chance,” she repeated. “I didn’t miss it. It got taken from me. By this—this thing.” Donna gestured at her back. “That’s why my mark’s disappeared, cos my whole life changed. I never met him.”

“There’s a lot of people you were supposed to meet on your travels, Donna,” the blonde told her.

“This is not relevant to the mission,” said Captain Magambo.

“But I don’t get it,” said Donna, ignoring her.“You said I was meant to meet him.” She stared at the blonde, a horrible realization coming over her. “Were you lying? You just needed me for this, to be some kind of host?”

“No. No, Donna, I was wrong. You’re not just a host. We’re getting separate readings from you, and they’ve been there since you were born. I thought it was just the Doctor we needed, but it’s the both of you. The Doctor and Donna Noble, together—but to stop the stars from going out, not anything to do with marks.”

Donna felt overwhelmed. The woman had kept saying she was meant to be with this Doctor. Were they soulmates or weren’t they? She couldn’t concentrate while she could see the bug; it was just too horrible. “Turn it off, please.”

The captain did so.

“It’s still there, though,” she said. The blonde nodded. “What can I do to get rid of it?”

“You’re going to travel in time.”

Donna was kitted out with a jacket that weighed about half what she did with all the wires attached to it, a fancy watch of some kind, and a glass of water.

“Just remember, when you get to the junction, change the car's direction by one minute past ten.”

Their rudimentary machine was beginning to power up. Donna tried to prepare herself; she had no idea what time travel would be like, even though she’d apparently done it in another life. And would do it again, once she’d fixed everything.

She tried to recall those brief flashes from her dreams and memories of the man the blonde had claimed was the Doctor. She’d said he thought Donna was special. What did Donna think of him? Was it really worth risking everything on a time travel stunt none of these people were sure would work, just to get back to a world where they were together?

The only answer she could find within herself was  _ yes _ .

“I’m ready,” Donna said aloud.

“One minute past ten,” the woman reminded her.

“Because I understand now,” Donna continued. “You said I was going to die, but you mean this whole  _ world _ is going to blink out of existence. But that's not dying, because a better world takes its place. The Doctor's world. And I'm still alive.”

The blonde said nothing.

“That's right, isn't it? I don't die. If I change things, I don't die. That's- that's right, isn't it?”   


The pitying smile that came to the woman’s face made Donna‘s heart plummet. “I'm sorry.”

“But I can't die. I've got a future. With the Doctor. You told me!”

“Activate!” Shouted the captain. Sparks flew, and then Donna felt as though she was being pulled across an impossible distance in an unimaginably short time. The air left her lungs and she fell forward onto hands and knees.

The first thing Donna was aware of was the sounds around her. People walking and talking, cars driving, music from radios and speakers. A city. Her home, as if it had never been destroyed.

Donna could only gasp with joy for a brief moment before she realized something—this was Sutton Court. She was meant to be on Little Sutton Street. “I’m half a mile away. I’m half a mile away!”

She checked the watch she’d been given and felt another jolt of panic.

“Four minutes? Oh, my God.”

Donna leapt to her feet and started running. She couldn’t miss this, she just couldn’t. She didn’t even know what would happen if she did. But she had to stop herself turning right to ensure the survival of London, to keep the world from going to hell, and to save a man from drowning.

She ran until her leg muscles were burning, and the air was stabbing her lungs. It was 9:59 and she had only just made it to the end of Ealing Road. There was nothing left in her. She couldn’t run anymore.

“I’m not going to get there.”

Donna remembered the blonde’s words: _“You’re going to die.”_

A truck was trundling down the road towards her, and Donna finally understood what the plan had been all along. She closed her eyes and stepped off the pavement.

There were screeching brakes, then she was flying through the air and hitting the ground. Maybe it was shock, but she couldn’t quite feel the pain. There were people all around, and she didn’t know when they’d gotten there or what they were saying. She couldn’t even move.

Then through the crowd came the blonde. The woman leaned over her, face impassive. Donna wondered how she’d gotten here.

“Tell him this. Two words.”

Just as Donna’s eyes closed, the blonde whispered in her ear.

_ “Bad Wolf.” _

Over that, she could hear her own voice. “I’m going left...left...left…”

Everything hurt, and nothing made sense. She was dead, but she wasn’t, and Donna screamed as time rewound and reformed.

The street and the blonde were gone, and she was sitting back in the fortune teller’s tent, everything coming back to her in a rush. Turning left, the job at HC Clements, meeting Lance, the wedding, the Doctor. It all made so much  _ sense _ , and she was  _ alive _ , and the universe felt right again.

Something fell off her, and Donna stood to see it was that same huge bug, it’s legs writhing for a moment before they stilled.

“What the  _ hell  _ is that?”

You were so strong,” said the woman. She was looking at Donna with a kind of terror. “What are you? What will you be? What will you be?!”

Before Donna could say anything, the fortune teller fled out the back.

Donna spun back around as the tent flap at the front was pushed up, revealing the Doctor. “Everything alright?”

He must have been looking for her. He was alive and safe and smiling and Donna had never felt such a relief before.

“Oh, God,” she gasped, almost stumbling as she came forward and threw her arms around him.

The Doctor returned her hug, though when she pulled back asked, “What was that for?”

How could she really explain? That she’d lived through nearly two years without him, and it had been awful and cold and lonely? That she hadn’t known what she was missing, only that it was so important? That she loved him?

Donna merely shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, and hugged him again. In his arms, it all just felt like some horrible nightmare, and even now Donna was having trouble remembering it all.

“Hold on,” said the Doctor, stepping back but leaving his hands on her waist as he stared at something on the ground behind her. “What’s this?”

Donna looked over her shoulder and shuddered. Right, the bug. “That woman put it on my back, I think.”

He moved around her and crouched down to examine the thing. “It’s dead. How’d that happen?”

“I don’t know.” Donna watched him pick it up and move to the little table. He grabbed one of the incense sticks and began prodding at it. “It was strange. She was going on about me turning right instead of left and changing my life or whatever, only it all went sort of wrong.”

“Wrong?”

Donna took the unoccupied chair. “Well all these horrible things kept happening, aliens and whatnot, and no one could stop them because—well, you’d died.”

The Doctor stopped what he was doing and looked up at her. “Because you turned right?”

“I turned right and took this different job my mum wanted me to and cause I never went to HC Clements—”

“You never appeared in the TARDIS,” he finished for her. “Ah.” He nodded to himself, as if it made perfect sense that he’d died.

Donna reached out hesitantly and placed a hand on his arm. “Doctor—”

“The real question is, if I died, how can we be having this conversation? See, this thing is one of the Trickster’s Brigade.” He prodded at the beetle again. “Changes a life in tiny little ways. Most times, the universe just compensates around it, but with you? Great big parallel world. Funny thing is, seems to be happening a lot to you.”

Donna took her hand away. “How do you mean?”

“Well, the Library and then this. The fact you can even remember so much about this is something, even.”

“I remembered stuff from here when I was there,” she told him. 

The same thing had happened in the Library. Miss Evangelista had pointed it out, that she’d been protected from the integration. 

Donna shrugged it off. “Just goes with the job, I suppose.”

“Sometimes I think there's way too much coincidence around you, Donna,” said the Doctor. “I met you once, then I met your grandfather, then I met you again. In the whole wide universe, I met you for a second time.” He was staring at her with an expression she couldn’t quite place. “It's like something's binding us together.”

Donna sat back in surprise. That kind of talk people usually reserved for soulmates, and they were hardly— “Oh!”

“Donna?”

Her hand had darted to her back, and Donna tried her best to morph it into some kind of neck massage as the Doctor watched her with worry. But her mark. Had it come back?

Donna couldn’t explain the bubble of anxiety that still dwelled within her at the thought. Hadn’t she been wishing to get rid of it for weeks now? She knew she loved the Doctor, but she couldn’t quite forget the panic in that world as her mark had slowly faded away, like a door closing on her future.

Sure, she’d gotten things mixed up about  _ who _ her soulmate was—that was one thing she’d never be able to tell him about that parallel world and live it down. But if the life she’d gotten back included a chance of meeting her actual soulmate...could she pass it up?

Somehow, not getting the job at HC Clements and not meeting the Doctor changed her destiny. Changed it so severely she lost her soulmate. That meant he had to be the key, didn't he?

And what if he was? Did she really want to know after all? Donna found she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that it was important somehow.

“Look, I need you to do something for me, but before that...I’ve sort of got to come clean about something.” 

She hesitated a moment longer. Could she really do this? Her life as it was now, that was what she’d dreamed of and died for in that other world.

The Doctor was watching her with those big brown eyes full of earnest concern. “Donna, whatever it is, you can tell me.”

The date, the necklace, everything—it wouldn’t be right, wouldn’t be fair to him if she wasn’t honest, would it?

“I lied about not having a mark—and I don't want to hear it, cause I already know about yours.”

“What?” The Doctor yelped.

“I’m not upset,” she said, for he’d lost all his color, and if his eyes grew any wider, they might just pop out of his skull. “I’m just saying, there's no reason for either of us to be upset since we both lied.”

“You know,” he repeated. “About my mark. And you're okay with it?”

“Of course I’m okay with it.” What, did he think he needed her permission to have one? “But see, my mark’s in some other language. It’s not from Earth, and the Library didn’t know it. Even the TARDIS won’t translate it for me. But I’m thinking maybe you’d know it or be able to find it if you don’t know what it says.”

The Doctor said nothing. He still seemed thrown by her confession, which she supposed was understandable. Probably wondering why she’d brought it up now after all this time. He had that look where he wasn’t actually seeing what he was staring at.

“Spaceman,” Donna tried again. He blinked and refocused on her. “Would you read it for me?”

His mouth opened, but it took a couple tries for him to form his answer. “Course.”

Donna took a deep breath. This was it. “Okay.” She stood up and turned her back to him, then held her hair to the side as she tugged her shirt collar down.

The silence was absolute save for her breathing. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected; a name rattled off, an exclamation of the language of origin, a sorry? But the moment stretched on...and on...and on. He had to have something by now, right?

“Doctor?” When he still said nothing. Donna turned around.

He was absolutely thunderstruck. She didn’t think he’d ever been so stunned, not even when she’d appeared on his TARDIS or spotted him across the room at Adipose Industries.

A nervous smile rose to her lips. “What’s that look about? What’s it say?”

Something was wrong, had to be.

“Doctor?”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe me, I'm just as surprised as the rest of you at my newfound updating speed. No idea how long it'll last, but here is the latest chapter for you all! Any recognizable dialogue comes from The Stolen Earth/Journey's End, and I do not own it. Once again, thanks very much to my incredible beta colorofmymind and to all of you who read, kudos, comment, and bookmark. Wouldn't be here without you. Please enjoy!

It was fortunate he’d already been sitting, a voice in some tiny corner of his mind said. The rest of his brilliant brain had decided to collectively go on strike and only repeat the same sentence over and over again:  _ that was his name. _

Right there on Donna Noble’s back. Her entire life, to say nothing of the whole time they’d been traveling together. A name — his name — to match the name —  _ her  _ name — on his own.

Donna, his Donna, was really... _ his _ Donna?

How could he have missed this? How could he have been so thick? This whole time every instinct had been practically screaming that there was no one else for him, and yet he’d forcibly convinced himself it just wasn’t the case. He’d been bending the known facts of the workings of soulmate marks in order to accommodate his strange situation when really the answer turned out to be nothing more than a simple, single lie. Well, two lies, his and Donna’s.

And perhaps that was where the pitfall had occurred. Donna was almost brutally honest about everything else; what reason would he have had to suspect she hadn’t been truthful about this?

Of course, now her keen interest in learning alien languages made a whole lot more sense. She’d been trying to translate Circular Gallifreyan on her own. If she’d only come to him about things earlier he could have saved her the trouble of searching for books; his native tongue was deader than Latin.

And then Wilf! Asking about circles — well, of course he would. He’d have seen his granddaughter’s mark. The Doctor had been startled by the question at the time, but then the Sontarans and the ATMOS gas, and cloned Martha had distracted him. He’d forgotten all about it till now.

But then, if Donna really had been searching for the answer to her soulmate mark this whole time, what did that mean? Was she hoping to find the person whose name she had — which was him, but she had no way of knowing that. How was she going to react when he told her?

“Doctor?”

The Doctor blinked. Donna had turned back around and was watching him with closely. Right, he was meant to say something.

He stood and tugged on his ear as he attempted, “Er, well it’s- it’s…”

Now, of all times, he chose to be tongue-tied? But what would she say? She already knew about his mark, she’d told him. Was she dreading, was she hoping for a match?

The Doctor drew in a breath — but then distantly, the TARDIS’ cloister bell sounded.

His head turned sharply in the direction he’d parked them. “What?”

“What was that?” Donna asked at the same time.

“The TARDIS. Something’s wrong.”

“What, here? Listen, I try not to be too hard on her, but she’s a little late on this one,” said Donna, gesturing to the Time Beetle.

“No, not here, Donna. Something’s wrong everywhere. The whole universe.” He turned and made for the exit of the tent. Soulmate marks could wait. “We need to find out what’s happening.”

“Oh, my God,” said Donna, and the Doctor skidded to a halt. “I can’t believe I forgot. There was this woman talking about that. She called it the darkness. Wanted me to warn you.” Her eyes were on the ground. “I’m so stupid.”

“No, you’re not,” the Doctor replied automatically, then asked, “What woman?”

“I don’t know, she wouldn’t give her name. She was blonde. Said she knew you.”

The Doctor frowned. A blonde woman who’d known him and had a warning for Donna? That could have only been if she’d understood Donna was from a parallel world and would be going back, but who could that be?

“What was the warning?”

“Two words. They didn’t really make any sense.” Donna looked back up at him. “But, I think she said ‘Bad Wolf’.”

For the second time today, he felt himself freeze.

“Doctor? What does it mean?”

How? How could this be happening? And why  _ now _ ?

“The end of the universe.”

When he burst out into the market, Donna right on his heels, he discovered the old message written on every surface. The Doctor could feel his fear rising. He reached back and found Donna’s hand, then sprinted them back to the TARDIS.

Donna looked around in confusion and concern at the red lighting that currently filled the ship, then followed him up to where he was already flipping switches and pressing buttons to put them in flight.

“Where are we going?”

“Need to check on the Earth.”

“Is that where it’s all gonna happen?”

“No idea,” he answered truthfully. “But it’s usually a safe bet.”

“And who was that woman?”

The Doctor looked up at her. “It was Rose.”

They landed, and he raced out of the doors into a perfectly normal, quiet suburb. Donna stopped right beside him looking just as perplexed.

“It's fine. Everything's fine. Nothing's wrong, all fine.” There was a milkman across the street, so they ran over. “Excuse me. What day is it?”

“Saturday.”

“Saturday,” The Doctor echoed. His eyes darted about trying to find something, anything odd or out of place. But there was nothing. “Good. Good, I like Saturdays.”  
  
“So, I just met Rose Tyler?” Donna checked.

“Yeah.”

“But she's locked away in a parallel world.”  
  
“Exactly,” said the Doctor. “If she can cross from her parallel world to your parallel world, then that means the walls of the universe are breaking down, which puts everything in danger. Everything. But how?”

The milkman was staring at the pair of them like they were spouting nonsense, which he supposed they were. The Doctor and Donna returned to the TARDIS.

He checked the readings on the ship. Everything was fine. Oxygen levels, nitrogen, all stable.

“So, Rose is coming back.”

“Yeah.” The Doctor darted a glance at Donna. She seemed to be processing that information. Truthfully, he still was, too.

He’d resigned himself to the idea he would never see his former companion again. Not before giving Martha rather the wrong impression about the nature of his relationship with Rose. He hadn’t been willing to open up quite enough to correct her, which was his fault.

The Doctor also remembered what Rose had been hoping for at Bad Wolf Bay. Surely however long it had been in the parallel world, she had found whoever’s name she did have. He would wish for nothing less for her.

In the case that she hadn’t though, things could perhaps become a little unclear. He didn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea again, anyway, least of all Donna.

The Doctor turned from the controls to face her. “Donna, about what you asked me earlier—”

There was a  _ bang! _ and the whole ship rattled. They both grabbed at the console to remain upright.

“What the hell was that?” Donna shouted.

“Don’t know. It came from outside.”

They descended the ramp together, and he pulled open the doors. Only it wasn’t that same suburb that met their eyes.

“But we're in space,” Donna observed. “How did that happen? What did you do?”

He ran back up to the scanner. “We haven't moved. We're fixed. It can't have— no.” He hurried back to Donna’s side, staring out at the occasional rock that sailed by through empty space. “The Tardis is still in the same place, but the Earth has gone. The entire planet. It's gone.”

Donna for once had no ready reply. She seemed too stunned to even move. The Doctor knew that kind of sudden loss. He’d never wanted anyone else to experience it. Slowly, he shut the doors and guided Donna back up to the console.

“Come on.” He tried to lead her to the jump seat, but Donna shrugged him off.

“But if the Earth's been moved, they've lost the Sun,” she reasoned. “What about my mum? And grandad?” Donna looked to him, eyes wide and watery. “They're dead, aren't they? Are they dead?”

“I don't know, Donna,” he answered quietly. “I just don't know. I'm sorry, I don't know.”  
  
“That's my family. My whole world.” Her voice was shaking, and he wanted more than anything to offer her comfort. To pull her back into his arms so she wouldn’t feel so alone. Comfort wouldn’t bring her family back, though. No, Donna needed him working.

He ran diagnostics on the TARDIS. “There's no readings. Nothing. Not a trace. Not even a whisper. Oh, that is fearsome technology.”

“So what do we do?”

This was the entire Earth. A planet he cared for a great deal, and, perhaps even more importantly, Donna’s home. This wasn’t the time to run around trying to be clever. They needed help.

“Donna, I'm taking you to the Shadow Proclamation,” the Doctor decided. “Hold tight.”

He began the takeoff process. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Donna wipe at her eyes and take up her usual position.

“So go on then, what is the Shadow Proclamation anyway?”

He smiled briefly to see her rallying. “Posh name for police. Outer space police. Here we go.”

They landed with a thud and were met outside with a few Judoon, who soon enough led them into the main hall of the Architect.

“Hello, I’m the Doctor. Species, Time Lord,” he rattled off before she could ask. They were rather in a hurry.

“Time Lords are the stuff of legend,” she pronounced. “They belong in the myths and whispers of the Higher Species. You cannot possibly exist.”

Then she showed them just how big the problem was, about twenty-four times as big. They viewed via hologram the various planets that had been taken in the same instant as the Earth. Big and small, inhabited and not, from all across the universe. The Architect, nor he, could make any connection between them. 

That was until Donna spoke. “What about Pyrovillia?”

The Architect regarded her with a frown. “Who is the female?”

Now how did he answer that one? Donna Noble, resident of the missing Earth? His best friend, Donna Noble? His soulmate? That would certainly make a splash, and not necessarily with the Architect.

Fortunately, Donna spoke for herself. “Donna. I'm a human being. Maybe not the stuff of legend but every bit as important as Time Lords, thank you.”

The Doctor couldn’t stop a smirk overtaking his features. He loved watching her at her most confident. If only Donna could see herself like this, the way he did.

“Way back, when we were in Pompeii, Lucius said Pyrovillia had gone missing.” And Donna didn’t stop there, either, going on to remind him of the lost Adipose breeding planet.

“That's it! Donna, brilliant. Planets are being taken out of time as well as space.” He added both of them, then studied what they had. “Something missing. Where else, where else, where else? Where else lost, lost, lost, lost. Oh! The Lost Moon of Poosh.”

With everything that had happened on Midnight, he’d almost forgotten. Immediately after he plugged Poosh in, the spheres above their heads moved positions.

“What did you do?” The Architect demanded.

“Nothing. The planets rearranged themselves into the optimum pattern.”

It was an engine, for what he was unable to devise without knowing who had done it. There was a nagging feeling in his gut that he pointedly ignored. It couldn’t be them.

They discussed possibilities for tracking or triangulation. After several minutes, it was clear once again he and the Architect were getting nowhere. The Doctor went in search of Donna and found her on the steps.

“Donna, come on, think. Earth. There must've been some sort of warning. Was anything happening back in your day, like electrical storms, freak weather, patterns in the sky?”

The only thing she could tell him was something about disappearing bees.

The Doctor turned away, trying not to let his disappointment show. He knew it was unfair of him to expect Donna to have the answer, not when her family and planet was missing, but she’d just always known the exact right thing to say before. Some small little detail he would never notice that always lead him straight to the solution — of course!

He looked back at her, his determination and awe returning full measure. “The bees are  _ disappearing _ !” Oh, he could kiss her!

The Doctor rushed to one of the screens instead and began typing as he and Donna took turns explaining the epiphany to the Architect — though Donna seemed to get a bit tripped up when he brought in Melissa Majorica.

“Are you saying  _ bees _ are  _ aliens _ ?”

“Of course not,” he told her, then refocused back on his typing. “Not all of them.” While he was sure Donna had something to say to that, he carried on. “But if the migrant bees felt something coming, some sort of danger, and escaped? Tandocca.”

“The Tandocca Scale,” surmised the Architect.

“Tandocca Scale is the series of wavelengths used as a carrier signals by migrant bees,” he explained to Donna. “Infinitely small. No wonder we didn't see it. It's like looking for a speck of cinnamon in the Sahara, but look, there it is. The Tandocca trail. The transmat that moved the planets was using the same wavelength, we can follow the path—”

“—and find the Earth? Well, stop talking and do it!” Donna was already running for the hallway they’d parked in.

“I am!” He hurried after her and got the trail up on the TARDIS screens. Faint, but still there.

They probably guaranteed themselves arrest warrants by disregarding the Architect’s order to lead her troops into battle, but they were on their way — until suddenly, they weren’t.

“It's stopped.” He stared at the no longer pulsing time rotor and the scanner that displayed their current location.

“What do you mean? Is that good or bad? Where are we?”

“The Medusa Cascade. I came here when I was just a kid, ninety years old. It was the centre of a rift in time and space.” He showed her on the scanner. The nebula was still vast and colorful as it had been back then. But empty. They’d been too late following the trail.

“So, where are the twenty seven planets?” Donna wanted to know.

“Nowhere. The Tandocca Trail stops dead. End of the line.”  
  
“So what do we do?” When he said nothing, Donna looked back at him. “Doctor, what do we do?”

The Doctor backed right into one of the coral struts, his arms hanging limp at his sides.

She shook her head. “Now don't do this to me. No, don't. Don't do this to me. Not now.” Donna took two steps towards him. “Tell me, what are we going do? You never give up.  _ Please _ .”

She was begging him, and there was nothing he could do. He was out of tricks, and he hadn’t found Donna’s home or family. He’d failed her.

Donna went round to the other side of the console. He was sure she didn’t want him to see her break down.

And it wasn’t for him to see, was it? Not when he was the one so thoroughly letting her down. Of the pair of them, Donna had always been far better at this.

Perhaps it was for the best he hadn’t gotten the chance to translate the name on her back for her. Some soulmate he was turning out to be. Couldn’t even get her family or her planet back. He was sitting on what should have been some of the happiest news in her life, and he couldn’t tell her.

It was completely silent in the TARDIS for the first time since Donna had boarded. That more than anything felt wrong. Before either of them could bring themselves to speak again, a familiar ringing interrupted. And it wasn’t coming from Donna this time.

“Phone!”

“Doctor, phone!” Donna exclaimed in nearly the same instant.

He sprang forward and snatched the mobile up from the console. “Martha?”

Instead of Martha’s voice, he was met with a steady beeping tone.

“It’s a signal.”

“Can we follow it?”

The Doctor withdrew his stethoscope and jammed it into his ears, then rounded the console and leaned in towards Donna with a grin. “Oh, just watch me.”

She smiled right back at him. Oh, yes! They were back.

He pulled a lever, and the TARDIS began to shake more than usual. “We’re traveling through time,” the Doctor realized. “One second in the future. The phone call’s pulling us through!”

On the scanner, the planets began to pop into view seemingly from nowhere. They nearly crashed right into the side of Clom, and Donna clutched at him as they both screamed. The TARDIS managed to right herself at the last second, and they sat above and amongst the twenty-seven missing planets. At some point, his arms had ended up off the controls and around Donna, who met his eyes briefly before they simultaneously stepped back from each other. Right, they’d arrived, which was really only half the battle.

And if things were about to go a bit sideways, this really was his last chance for a while, wasn’t it?

“Donna, about what you asked earlier—”

He stopped himself this time, for the scanner screen had begun to flicker with static. Oh, what now?

“Hold on, hold on. Some sort of Subwave Network.”

The screen resolved, splitting into four squares with them in one and a number of familiar faces in the others.

“Where the hell have you been!” Exclaimed Jack Harkness, though the relieved smile that spanned his face lasted only a moment before he stated, “Doctor, it’s the Daleks.”

Oh, he’d really been hoping that gut feeling was going to be wrong.

What appeared to be the immortal man’s Torchwood team were commenting, but he was far more interested in what  Sarah had to say.

“They’re taking people onto their spaceship.”

“It’s not just Dalek Caan,” added Martha. Francine was at her side. The only person he couldn’t figure out was the teenager with Sarah Jane.

“Sarah Jane, who’s that boy?”

“And who’s he?” Donna asked, reaching forward to point at Jack’s square.

“Captain Jack,” he answered, then held up his own finger in warning. “Don’t. Just don’t.” He knew her curiosity was mostly innocent, but he’d barely been able to tolerate the captain working his charms on Martha; he certainly wouldn’t be able to sit and watch it happen with Donna.

Though there was an unsettling thought. Donna tended to especially appreciate a certain physique, and he was no Captain Jack. Had he been merely misreading her friendly affection for him? Every time he thought to tell her he seemed to think of a million reasons why it was a terrible idea. This was torture.

The Doctor decided he didn’t much like thinking about that, and resolved to think about something else. The Daleks were probably a good choice.

Before they could even begin to discuss strategy with the others, the screen began to fizzle again. Someone else was trying to get through. Rose, perhaps? She’d traveled to Donna’s parallel world and sent the warning out in the first place.

But a far more chilling visage met their eyes when the scanner came back into focus: Davros.

“Welcome to my new Empire. Doctor, it is only fitting that you should bear witness to the resurrection and the triumph of Davros, lord and creator of the Dalek race.”

He was frozen with both disbelief and terror. How? How could he possibly be alive?

“Doctor?” Donna could hardly understand what was happening, yet she wasn’t asking for clarification. She was watching him with concern.

“Have you nothing to say?” Taunted Davros.

“Doctor, it’s alright,” Donna continued softly. She laid a hand on his arm. “We’re on the TARDIS. We’re safe.”

Oh, he wished they were. But it was enough to break him from his horrified daze.

Davros explained how Dalek Caan, the one who’d got away in Manhattan, had temporal shifted back into the Time War itself and rescued him. How he had then extrapolated new Daleks from his own cells. An entire Dalek fleet at the height of its strength. That’s what they were up against.

“I have my children, Doctor. What do you have now?”

Out of Davros’ sightline, he gripped Donna’s hand tightly in his. “After all this time, everything we saw, everything we lost, I have only one thing to say to you.”

He paused for a moment. Davros looked expectant.

“Bye!”

The Doctor threw a lever, cutting off the transmission and sending them flying towards the Earth’s surface.

“You okay?” Donna checked. “Daleks. Not exactly an average day.”

“We’ve got bigger things to worry about than whether I’m okay.”

“Really?” Donna had walked around the console right into his path. She pressed the button he needed for him. “In my experience, when you’re not in a right state that’s when things tend to go wrong.”

“I thought things just always went wrong.”

She didn’t even smirk at the remark. Instead, Donna took hold of his hands, her eyes searching his with a compassion that seared straight through to his hearts. “Just promise me you’re not gonna send me and all the others off somewhere while you go all Time War, Spaceman."

He didn’t bother pretending the thought hadn’t crossed his mind. She knew him too well for that.  
  
"You’re not alone this time.”  
  
He closed his eyes for the briefest moment. Hearing those words from her, she could have no idea just how much they meant to him. For the first time, they sounded true.

“Donna, if the Library taught me anything, it was that sending you away is the worst possible idea. I’ll be right enough, long as you’re with me.”

She squeezed his hands and gave a nod, her silent pledge to do just that. It was the perfect moment to explain his newfound knowledge of just  _ why _ she was so right for him, but he had to return his focus to flying the ship. There was far more than the two of them at stake.

They landed and stepped out to find a vacant street filled with abandoned cars, debris, and rubble. “It’s like a ghost town,” Donna said, looking around at the destruction with wide eyes.

The Doctor wasn’t as concerned. Humanity could rebuild; they always did. But they had to stop whatever was coming next in order to let them.

“Sarah Jane said they were taking the people. What for?” He spun around to face her. “Think, Donna. When you met Rose in that parallel world, what did she say? The darkness, what does that mean?”

“I don’t know, she didn’t really elaborate.” He could tell Donna was trying to concentrate on those memories, even though they likely slipping further and further away from her every second. “She just said we were meant to be together. Work together, I mean. To stop the stars going out,” Donna added.

“Meant to?” He repeated. “You and I?” Had Rose guessed at the truth? Had she been trying to tell Donna?

Donna wasn’t meeting his eyes. “I think she meant I needed to get back, so you’d know. Anyway, doesn’t really matter.” The strangest sort of smile twisted her lips; it was somehow happy and sad at the same time. She gave a little nod over his shoulder. “Forget what I know, you can just ask her yourself.”

He stared at her, uncomprehending, until slowly his head turned to follow her gaze. Near the other end of the street stood Rose Tyler.

It was surreal. She looked near exactly the same — well, besides the ludicrously sized gun hanging at her side — and one of those wide grins spread across her face as he met her eyes. The walls between universes weren’t supposed to be this weak, yet he couldn’t find it within himself to be upset to see her.

Rose tossed the gun aside and began running towards them. The Doctor only just started to do the same when, out of the corner of his eye—

“Rose, look out!”

The patrolling Dalek turned at his shout, eyestalk fixing on him. _ “Exterminate!” _

He was only hit in the shoulder, but the pain ripped through him well enough. He crumpled to the ground as something exploded.

“Doctor!” Donna cried. The Doctor heard her running to him. He should have told her. Soon as he’d known it was the Daleks, he should’ve taken her aside and told her. What a fool he was, assuming they’d all make it out in the end, that there’d be time later.

Someone was pulling his head into their lap. It was Rose. “I’ve got you. Look, it’s me, Doctor. Don’t die,” she began to repeat, tearing up. “Oh, my God, don’t die.”

“Get him into the TARDIS, quick,” said Jack. Where had Jack come from? “Move.” He had one of those same ginormous guns, too. Had they coordinated? The Doctor’s head dropped back. He couldn’t lift it on his own anymore.

It was a three-person effort to get him up and back into his own ship. Donna was asking Jack about medicine. He felt himself smile or at least attempt to; that was Donna, always wanting to find a way, always wanting to try.

They set him down on the grating, and Rose was there, holding him and begging him not to change again. It wasn’t as though he wanted to, not in the middle of a Dalek invasion and when he hadn’t gotten the chance to tell Donna, to even begin to explain.

It just wasn’t fair, and he didn’t care that it made him sound more like a petulant child than a Time Lord nine-hundred and counting. He’d only just realized the full extent of their connection, and now he was expected to die?

The Doctor reached out to where he could see her on the edge of his vision, but Rose caught his hand.

“Doctor? Doctor, what do you need?”

“Donna,” he groaned, about all he could manage through the pain.

Rose’s eyes widened, then she turned her head sharply to look at Donna, who appeared just as startled.

“Need to...tell her,” he tried.

“What is it, Doctor? Anything you need to say, you can tell me,” Rose offered.

He grimaced. This was certainly one thing he hoped for Rose never to know, if only to spare her feelings.

“Donna,” he said again.

There was some shifting about around him. Rose stayed at his side and pulled him further into her lap to make room. Donna did her best to get in close on his other side, then took his other hand. “I’m right here, Spaceman.”

“It’s me,” he choked out.

“I know it’s you, silly.” She was trying to smile for him. She hadn’t understood. The Doctor could nearly feel tears of frustration coming on, or was that the pain? 

“No, it’s  _ me _ , Donna,” he stressed, trying to convey his meaning without words, as they so often managed to do. 

But never about this. They’d been looking right past each other the whole time when it came to soulmate marks. He felt a laugh bubble up which morphed into a pained grunt. Rose sniffed loudly. This was not at all how he’d wanted it to go.

“It’s okay,” Donna tried to soothe. “Jack says it’ll be fine in a minute.”

She was scared. Of course she was scared; she had no way of knowing just what was about to happen because he’d never prepared her. Any minute now he was going to change completely and appear a stranger to her eyes, and he hoped Donna would understand, but he couldn’t bear the idea of her being frightened of him or crying that he’d left her the way Rose had done. He’d carried Donna’s name with him through all his regenerations, but would she understand that?

The hand she held began to glow, and he withdrew it as she stared. “It’s starting.”

“Here we go.” Jack stepped forward and helped both Donna and Rose up and away from him. “Good luck, Doctor.”

Away from him now, Donna seemed to allow some of her confusion and worry show. “Will someone please tell me what is going on?”

“When he's dying, his er, his body, it repairs itself,” Rose attempted to explain. “It changes. But you can't!” She cried to him.

Rose’s panic was not at all helping Donna’s panic. Would she accept the new him?

The Doctor didn’t want to find that out today.

And as he stood, his eyes caught on something sitting innocently by the console. His hand. The hand in the jar. A perfect biological receptacle for his regeneration energy.

Oh, that was brilliant.

With an effort, as the fires of regeneration energy burst from him, he extended his arms towards the jar. He could feel himself healing, but instead of the change that would normally take over his whole body, the excess energy drained from him into the spare hand. As the flames extinguished, he found himself standing in the same place, whole and unchanged.

Across from him, Donna, Jack, and Rose stood huddled together, staring at him in shock.

“Now then, where were we?” He couldn’t help teasing. Then he bent to examine the hand. Yes, it had gone exactly as he’d hoped.

“You see? Used the regeneration energy to heal myself, but soon as I was done, I didn't need to change. I didn't want to. Why would I? Look at me.”

He gave them all a rakish grin, which disappointingly didn’t even get an eye roll from Donna. She was still a bit too stunned, it seemed.

“So, to stop the energy going all the way, I siphoned off the rest into a handy bio-matching receptacle, namely my hand. My hand there. My handy spare hand. What do you think?”

It was Rose who stepped forward. “You’re still you?”

Well, semantics would argue that he was always him, but he supposed he caught her meaning. “I’m still me.”

He got a hug for that. Imagine, almost two years ago she hadn’t even wanted this him around! Humans were so adaptable.

Jack was smiling as he stood next to Donna, and the Doctor quickly disentangled himself before the captain could get any ideas, placing himself right at Donna’s side.

“Happy to still see me?”

“I don’t even get what I was supposed to see,” she answered, then prodded at him with a finger. “You’re explaining later, Spaceman.”

“Spaceman?” Jack echoed with a bemused smile.

The Doctor ignored him. “Right. I’ll add it to the list.”

“What list?” Asked Donna.

“The list of things we need to talk about.”

She met his gaze and held it. “Right.”

“Doctor,” Rose began, but before she could say anything more everything went dead. The lights, the scanner, the very engine of the TARDIS, all of it was gone. Oh, he really was out of practice.

“They've got us. Power's gone. Some kind of chronon loop.”

They were headed for what Jack said was called the Crucible. He needed to figure out the Daleks’ plan before they got there if they had any hope now. Rose only had the same things to report. Stars going out, dimensions collapsing.

Then Donna spoke up. “In that parallel world, you said something about me.”

“The dimension cannon could measure timelines, and it's — it's weird, Donna,” said Rose, “but they all seemed to converge on you.”

“But why me? I mean, what have I ever done? I'm a temp from Chiswick.”

“You’re more than that,” he said barely before she’d finished. Donna’s cheeks flushed a pale pink, but she didn’t try to disagree. Jack looked back and forth between them, contemplating something.

There was a thud as they were placed down, and he could only assume they’d arrived. The Dalek voices confirmed that a moment later.

_ “Doctor, you will step forth or die.” _

He looked around at them all. “We’ll have to go out. Because if we don’t, they’ll get in.”

Rose and Jack both protested. They just didn’t understand, this wasn’t like the old times. He couldn’t save them from this.

There was no chance of escaping. Rose’s dimension canon wasn’t charged, and Jack’s vortex manipulator had been drained along with the TARDIS.

“Right then, all of us together.”

Jack and Rose both looked grim, but, “Donna?” He asked.

She’d had remained awfully quiet through this. When he looked at her closely, she seemed lost in thought.

The Doctor walked right up to her. “Donna?”

She blinked and focused on him. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. There’s nothing else we can do.”

He was sorry for so much more. Sorry he’d wasted so much time, and now they’d run out. Sorry he’d never get to tell her. Sorry she deserved so much more than this.

“No, I know,” she assured him quietly. Of course she’d back him up and never blame him.

He did his best to put on a brave face for her. “It’s been good, though, hasn’t it?” The Doctor looked around at them again. “All of us. All of it. Everything we did. You were brilliant,” he told Rose. She smiled. Then he looked to Jack. “And you were brilliant.” Jack nodded back at him. Finally, he faced back to Donna again. “And you, you were so brilliant, Donna Noble.”

“So were you,” she replied softly. He nearly lost his composure right there.

“Blimey,” the Doctor breathed, turning away again. He squared his shoulders and marched through the door.

Out on the Crucible, the Daleks immediately began to gloat.  _ “Daleks reign supreme. All hail the Daleks!” _

They were nearly as bad as the Sontarans carrying on like that. If things weren’t so dire, he might have said as much to Donna just to hear her laugh.

But when he looked back, only Jack and Rose had joined him outside the TARDIS. What was Donna doing?

“Donna? You’re no safer in there,” he called, striding up to the door.

Just as he reached it, it snapped shut.

“What?” The Doctor tried the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. It had been locked.

“Doctor?” Donna’s voice sounded like she was just on the other side of the door. “What have you done?”

“It wasn’t me. I didn’t do anything.”

The door was rattling under his touch. Clearly Donna was trying what he just had to similar effect. “Oi! Oi, I’m not staying behind!”

He had to get her out of there. His key wouldn’t even turn in the lock when he tried it. The Doctor whirled around to glare at the red Dalek that appeared in charge. “What did you do?”

_ “This is not of Dalek origin.” _

“Doctor!” Donna called again.

They had to be lying. “Stop it! She's my friend. Now open the door and let her out.”

_ “This is Time Lord treachery.” _

“Me? The door just closed on its own,” he told them.

_ “Nevertheless, the TARDIS is a weapon, and it will be destroyed.” _

There was the sound of something opening, but when the Doctor looked back round it was to watch as his ship fell through a hole in the floor.

“What are you doing? Bring it back!” He wasn’t sure what he was, stunned, panicking, angry? “What have you done? Where's it going?”

_ “The Crucible has a heart of Z-neutrino energy. The TARDIS will be deposited into the core.” _

He’d settled on something now: fear. “You can't. You've taken the defences down. It'll be torn apart!”

“But Donna’s still in there!” Shouted Rose.

“Let her go!” Jack demanded.

Neither Rose nor Jack’s protests made any difference.

_ "The female and the TARDIS will perish together. Observe. The last child of Gallifrey is powerless.” _

An image from some surveillance system was projected for them to see the TARDIS beginning to sink into the molten core. And Donna with it. It felt as though someone had seized both of his hearts in an icy grip and wouldn’t let go.

He had no power over the Daleks. But there was one thing he could do. Hopeless as it seemed, he had to try.

“Please.” The Doctor stepped forward. “I’m begging you. I’ll do anything. Put me in her place! You can do anything to me, I don’t care!  _ Just get her out of there! _ ”

He might as well have not spoken, for all the reaction he received.  _ “You are connected to the TARDIS. Now feel it die.” _

The surveillance screen blinked out as the TARDIS disappeared into the core. He didn’t feel his ship die. He didn’t feel anything.

It was the Library all over again, only  _ worse _ , because he’d watched it happen this time and been just as utterly useless as before. How could he have let it happen? She was — Donna was dead, and he’d just  _ stood  _ there.

The red Dalek said something. He didn’t hear it. Then Jack was dead on the floor. Why wasn’t it him?

He didn’t realize he’d been swaying on his feet until Rose braced him with a hand on his arm. “Doctor. Doctor, please, snap out of it. They’ve killed Jack!”

“That’s alright,” he mumbled, eyes already straying back to the trapdoor that had taken Donna away. Why hadn’t he walked out with her together, like they always did? He should’ve taken her hand. Already he was keenly aware of the loss of it in his.

A couple of Daleks wheeling up behind them and Rose’s tugging had him realizing they were meant to be moving. He didn’t know where, and he frankly wasn’t concerned.

They were finally marched into a room where Davros was waiting and placed in separate containment fields. “It is time we talked, Doctor.”

“I have nothing to say.” What, really, there was more they expected from him? They always killed everyone else quickly, why did it have to be some big production with him?

Davros tried addressing Rose instead. “And to think you crossed entire universes, striding parallel to parallel to find him again. Just as Dalek Caan foretold.”

The mutated Dalek on its pedestal seemed to react to his name being said. _“This I have foreseen, in the wild and the wind. The Doctor will be here as witness, at the end of everything. The Doctor and his precious Children of Time. And one of them will die.”_   
  
His eyes narrowed, and he stepped right up to the edge of the containment field. “Was it you, Caan? Did you kill Donna? Why did the TARDIS door close? Tell me!”

“Oh, that's it,” Davros enthused. “The anger, the fire, the rage of a Time Lord who butchered millions. There he is.”

The Doctor glared but fell silent. He refused to play this game.

“Why so shy? Show your companion. Show her your true self. Dalek Caan has promised me that, too.”  
  
_ “I have seen. At the time of ending, the Doctor's soul will be revealed.” _

He took a step back. “My soul?”

“Yes, Doctor. We will discover it together. Our final journey. Because the ending approaches. The testing begins.”

“Testing of what?” Rose demanded when he failed to.

Davros did his own gruesome approximation of a smile. “The Reality bomb.”

He explained the physics of it to them and even displayed the Daleks’ test on a small group of humans via another projected screen. Rose was clearly horrified. The Doctor was resigned.

What more could he do? Beg? Begging hadn’t saved Donna. Begging wouldn’t stop Davros. The Daleks would only see it as more weakness to wipe out of the universe.

Just as Davros was crowing over his victory, another projection screen lit up and a familiar voice was heard. “This message is for the Dalek Crucible. Repeat. Can you hear me?”

Martha. The Doctor stepped right back up against the containment field. “Put me through!”

She appeared next, sitting in a dark room with no windows. “Doctor! I’m sorry, I had to. I’ve got the Osterhagen Key,” she told Davros. “Leave this planet and its people alone, or I’ll use it.”

“Osterhagen what?” He repeated. “What’s an Osterhagen Key?”

Martha explained about the twenty-five nuclear warheads that had somehow been placed beneath the Earth’s crust without him noticing. In UNIT’s typical twisted logic, by detonating them and blowing up the entire Earth, the Daleks would not have all the necessary planets for their Reality bomb engine, thus stopping them from destroying everything else in the universe. When would these humans stop with the sacrifice plays?

Rose seemed to approve of the plan, if her smirk was anything to go by. “She’s good.”

“Who’s that?” Martha asked.

“My name’s Rose. Rose Tyler.”

Martha’s eyes widened. “Oh, my God.” Then she looked about the rest of the room. “Where’s Donna?”

The Doctor sucked in a sharp breath. Rose glanced at him, then answered, “They killed her.”

If anything, Martha looked more frightened now as her eyes locked on him than when she’d been bluffing Davros. He hoped she’d been bluffing, anyway. “Oh, God.”

_ “Second transmission, internal,” _ a Dalek announced, and another screen popped up containing a number of familiar faces. Jack, Sarah Jane, Mickey, and Jackie, who had all collectively decided to cook up a scheme that involved blowing up the entire Crucible, including themselves.

_ “Enough!”  _ The red Dalek on a screen of his own commanded. _ “Engage defence zero five!” _

A transmat brought them all to the Vault to be contained along with him and Rose. The surrounding Daleks forced them into surrender. Davros was now practically overjoyed by his standards.

“Behold your children of time transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks, Doctor. You made this. And the prophecy unfolds.”

_ “The Doctor’s soul is revealed,”  _ declared Dalek Caan.  _ “See him. See the heart of him!” _

Everyone else looked down, casting brief, shame-filled glances at him. Davros opened his mouth no doubt intent on beginning yet another long-winded monologue, but then...the Doctor began to laugh.

The others were openly staring at him, a mix of confusion and fear on their faces. Davros’ triumphant grin fell from his lips, and Caan twitched restlessly. They all just didn’t get it, did they?

The Doctor managed to calm himself enough eventually. “ _ That _ was your big surprise? The thing you were going to ‘reveal’ to us all?” He asked, taking the trouble to form air quotes along with it. “Just what exactly about that was news to anyone here?”

_ “The Doctor’s soul—” _ Dalek Caan began feebly.

“You’re wrong, Caan,” the Doctor cut him off. “You can’t reveal my soul, cause I don’t have it anymore. Not all of it. You sent it to die in the core of the Crucible.”

“What?” He heard Mickey ask.

“They dropped the TARDIS—” Jack started to explain.

The Doctor looked over at him. “No, Jack. Not the TARDIS.”

The Captain met his eyes, his mouth falling open. “You mean,  _ she _ was…?”

“What?” Asked Rose, looking between them both. “Doctor, she was what?”

“What is this? What is the meaning of this?” Davros demanded.

“Donna Noble,” he stated for the benefit of everyone. “She’s the meaning of it. The meaning of everything, from my point of view. My soulmate,” the Doctor finally spoke the words aloud, only he was staring down Davros and surrounded by Daleks and a number of his closest friends while they waited for all of Reality to end. About the last way he’d wanted it to go. “And you killed her.”

“Oh my,” Sarah Jane gasped.

“What, you really do soulmates?” Jackie asked, sounding incredulous.

“Time Lords were said to have eliminated such sentiment,” Davros said.

“Well, I never was a very good Time Lord. Don’t like to admit that usually, but right now I don’t care. That bit about making my friends murderers, that might have hurt on a normal day.” Any trace of frivolity left him. “But this isn’t a normal day.”

“Doctor,” said Martha. He didn’t look at her. He couldn’t afford to look to any of the others; he didn’t want them thinking they could have done anything to stop him after.

“You’ve already taken away the single best part of my universe. Do you think I can be bothered to care about anything else you do to me?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “But the things I will do to  _ you _ , Davros.”

The Doctor thought he saw his enemy’s chair wheel back just a single inch. Good.

“See, you didn’t really do a very good job searching us. That’s like not capturing us at all. Because I’ve still got this.” He withdrew the sonic from his jacket. “You know what I can do with it? I can disable my containment field. The resulting feedback will cause a backlash, of course,” he acknowledged. “It might kill me, it might not. I’m a little unclear on whether I’ve got that fifteen hour grace period or not, but at the moment, as I said, I really don’t care.”

The Doctor pointed the sonic straight above him and placed his thumb on the switch.

“You wanted to see my rage, Davros?”

His former companions were shouting now. It was no use; the only person who might have been able to stop him had been dead thirty-one minutes and six seconds, and he’d held himself back from going too far for long enough.

But then, over everything else, came the most  _ impossible _ sound: the TARDIS.

The Doctor turned to watch the blue box, his ship, come phasing into view. His arm bent at the elbow, then slowly lowered. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Donna?”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again, everyone! I've had just enough time to finish this latest chapter before finals week. I'm not sure when the next one will be out because of those, but it shouldn't be too long. Just want to make it clear that there will be at the least one more chapter, despite this one covering pretty much the span of Journey's End. So don't worry. Anyway, a huge thanks again to everyone who has read, kudos'd, commented, and/or bookmarked this fic, and especially to my beta colorofmymind without whose edits this story would likely be much less enjoyable for you all.

Donna had experienced dematerialization, actual flying, and even being sucked up into the TARDIS — but  _ never _ had she felt like she was falling while inside the ship. Until now.

What had she hung about for? Getting distracted in the middle of a bloody Dalek attack, real smart. She’d promised to stay right by her Spaceman, and now here she was about as far away as she could possibly get and about to die to boot. All because she’d kept thinking she was hearing some stupid voice in her head.

The console room grew hotter and hotter while Donna was stuck on the floor. She crawled her way up to the control panel. That voice was still murmuring on the edge of her hearing, getting louder as she got closer. 

But not to the controls, she realized, as she came upon the glass jar containing supposedly the Doctor’s hand. It was glowing again and calling to her. Donna couldn’t seem to look away. Slowly, she reached out a hand and touched it.

Glass shattered as the jar broke open, and the golden light traveled up her arm and all through her. Donna fell back, unable to see anything beyond a golden haze.

It didn’t feel like fire, the way the Doctor had looked for those few terrifying moments. Instead Donna felt a sort of calm wash over her as she was filled with warmth. It was comforting and familiar, somehow, and for a minute she swore she could finally make out the voice she’d been hearing: Spaceman saying her name.

The light in front of her eyes receded, and she regained her vision in time to watch as the golden glow in her hands seemed to sink beneath her skin. Just as quickly, her panic returned.

“What the  _ hell _ was that?” Donna demanded to no one.

The only thing she could think of were the Huon particles she’d been poisoned with two years ago. What had she done to herself touching that hand? When she looked for it, it had disappeared.

One of the coral struts was aflame, reminding her she was going to burn alive before she could die by poisoning. She needed to do something! Not just for herself but the TARDIS. She couldn’t just let her burn. But she wasn’t good enough at piloting to get them out of this mess!

Abruptly, Donna’s mind seemed to flash back with perfect clarity to one lazy afternoon when Spaceman had been showing her how to do certain bits of maintenance on the ship. They’d been lying half under the console side by side while he’d pointed out which wires fed into which buttons.

_ “Knowing how to fix her will make you a better pilot,” the Doctor had told her as he’d replaced some of the wiring that he’d claimed was stripped, though Donna had detected no difference between those and the other wires. He just liked to pamper his ship, she’d suspected. “Especially if I can’t do it myself.” _

_ Donna had rolled onto her side to fix him with a look. “And why wouldn’t you be able to?” _

_ He’d shrugged. “Any number of reasons. I could be busy. Or incapacitated. Or — well, there’s always Emergency Protocol One if things get really serious.” _

_ “What’s Emergency Protocol—” she’d begun to ask, only for him to roll towards her as well and place a finger to her lips. _

_ “No, no, no, no, no, don’t do that. It’s keyed to your vocal signature,” he’d explained when she’d done her best to frown around the offending digit. “You say it and we go off straight to your mum’s. Because that’s what it does. It makes sure you get home, whatever’s happened to me.” _

_ The Doctor had removed his hand with some difficulty due to the close quarters, and Donna had considered his words. She hadn’t liked the sound of whatever happened to him, but she’d known it was foolish not to keep in mind the possibility. “Huh. Couldn’t have told me about that when I was stuck up on that Sontaran ship?” _

_ His mouth had opened and shut a couple times. Donna hadn't even bothered to hide her smirk. “I needed you and her with me back at UNIT,” he’d come up with eventually. “Anyway, it turned out alright, didn’t it?” _

_ She’d ducked her head, nearly brushing against his chest because she hadn’t wanted him to see her blush. He’d needed her? Daft Spaceman. “What’s next?” _

_ “Oh! Spanner would be lovely. Got to tighten the bolts on the helmic regulator. Can’t have that going out of whack.” _

In the present, the heat was growing near unbearable, but when Donna tried the scanner, it blinked on. Those Daleks must have released it from that chronon thing the Doctor had been going on about when they dropped the two of them. The ship was starting to work again.

“Emergency Protocol One!” She shouted.

An image flickered to life in front of her: Spaceman.

He wasn’t quite looking at her, nor did he react to the flames that were popping up here and there around them. It had to be a recording; he’d shown her how that worked, and she’d even made her own once on the sly while she’d sent him for tea.

“This is Emergency Protocol One. Donna, if you’ve activated this, something’s gone seriously wrong. Whatever we’re up against is dangerous, and I mean more so than usual. This safeguard is in place to get you home in case I am dying or already dead.”

What’s happened to him. She should’ve known. Donna was the one about to die, actually, but under his words she could hear the wheezing of the TARDIS engines, and the heat began to dissipate.

“Please don’t do anything rash,” he continued. “The TARDIS is not to be messed with. It’s dangerous, and it would hurt both of you. I know I can trust you to take care of her, Donna. Even if we didn’t finish your piloting lessons, she’ll be grateful for your company. I don’t know how she’ll get on without me, but if anyone can keep her going, it’s you.”

She wanted to scoff at these assertions, but the next words out of his mouth stole her very breath away.

“Donna, these past few months have been — well, they’ve made me the happiest I’ve been in a long time. Maybe ever. I wish I had convinced you to come with me that Christmas if it meant we’d have had more time. You mean more to me than I could ever possibly say.”

There was a lump in her throat that hadn’t been there before and Donna blinked furiously. It was the smoke from the dying fires that had her eyes stinging this way, not him.

“Never doubt your brilliance. Stay kind.” He wasn’t even looking at her, yet she nearly couldn’t bear the gentle warmth in his brown eyes. “And thank you, Donna Noble. Thank you for saving my life and making it worth living.”

She shrugged out of her jacket. It was too warm in here, and she needed her shirtsleeve to wipe at her eyes.

“Goodbye, Donna,” said the projected Doctor, and she knew he wasn’t really here, but she nearly cried out for him to wait as he disappeared. Why had he saved all that for when it was too late for her to respond?

Wait. It was taking her home. But did home mean back where the Earth was  _ supposed _ to be or where it actually was? What had she done? She couldn’t leave the Medusa Cascade!

As the time rotor slowed and finally stopped pulsing, Donna sat on the floor, too scared of what she might have done to check the scanner or even the doors. Even if the Doctor managed okay with the others on that Dalek Crucible — and she hoped to God he did — what use was it going to be if she’d left them all stranded? How could she have thought to do that to him?

Before Donna could panic too much, however, there was a knock on the TARDIS doors. She nearly cried out in relief at the familiar voice. “Donna, love, are you in there?”

“Gramps!” She scrambles onto her feet, pulling herself up by the console and then laying her hands on it in thanks. “Oh, he’s right about you being clever!” Then she raced down the ramp.

When she threw open the door she found not just her grandad but her mother waiting on the other side as well. Yet the inevitable tirade she’d always anticipated if her mum had ever learned about any of this never came.

“Oh, Donna!”

She found herself pulled into a tight hug which she managed to return through her shock. “We’ve been so worried!”

Was she  _ crying _ ?

“It’s alright, mum.” Donna patted her on the back and tried not to let on how thrown she was by this reaction.

“Will it be alright, then? You and he’ve stopped it? Where is he? Where’s the Doctor?” Her Gramps asked, peering over her shoulder as if he expected Spaceman’s skinny frame to appear in the doorway any second, and Donna thought she might start crying, too.

“No, he’s — he’s still up there. I don’t know how, but I’ve got to get back.”

She only half-turned before her mother grabbed at her arm. “Donna, you can’t! Those Dalek things. It’s not safe!”

“I’m not saying it is,” Donna argued before stopping abruptly.

There was a sort of  _ lurch  _ in her gut, like how it used to feel as a child before she was about to throw up.

“Sorry, just a minute,” she excused herself, running straight for the house. Her mum and Gramps called after her.

Donna only just managed to stagger into the bathroom. She fell forward, her hands catching the lip of the sink, and watched as instead of being sick a wisp of some kind of golden mist escaped her mouth.

When she turned to see her family standing in the open doorway staring at her, all she could think to say was, “Mum, Gramps, I think something’s happened to me.”

“D- Donna,” said her grandad, raising one hand to point at her back. She felt her stomach do another flip. Oh God, was there still some bug on there?

But when she turned to look, that wasn’t what she saw. Instead, through the cloth of her top, something was shining. Donna tugged it down.

Her mark. Her mark was glowing now.

“Oh, you are  _ kidding _ .” First it decided to disappear in the parallel world and now this?

“What is it?” Her mum asked, eyes wide. “What’s it doing?”

“How should I know? It’s never done that before.” Donna coughed up some more gold mist, and finally admitted, “There was this thing in the TARDIS—”

“The what?”

“His spaceship. The box sitting on your lawn, mum,” she hastily corrected.

“How can that box be a spaceship? It looks like one of those old telephone boxes the police had.”

“Sylvia, come on, you saw it appear out there just now,” said her Gramps.

Donna ignored them both, leaning forward to examine herself in the mirror. Was it her imagination, or were those rings of gold in her irises Spaceman had been going on about on Shan Shen brighter than usual? What was happening to her?

“I need to get back.”

Her way was still being decidedly blocked.

“You can’t!” Her mother repeated. “Those things were killing people!”

“And they’ll kill a lot more people if we don’t stop them.”

“I tried to tell you, love,” added her Gramps. “This is what our Donna’s been doing now, her and the Doctor. They stop all these aliens from hurting people.”

Her mother tried a different tack, waving a hand at her back. “We don’t even know what’s happened to you.” 

Donna fixed her shirt to lie over her mark properly, even if the light it was giving off still showed through. “Well the only one who might is the Doctor, so I’d better go and get him, hadn’t I?”

“If you hadn’t been with him, this never would’ve happened,” said her mum.

“It’s not his fault.” Donna decided not to tell them it was his hand she’d touched that seemed to have got her this way.

Though there was a thought. He’d died in that parallel world, and her mark had vanished. Because never meeting him meant she’d never meet her soulmate. Now she’d touched his hand full of that weird generated energy or whatever, and her mark was glowing. Because…?

She knew she couldn’t be right. Like Rose had said, she’d met and would keep meeting a lot of people through her travels with the Doctor. And he had his own mark. It was stupid even thinking it.

Donna shoved those thoughts to the back of her mind. “He needs me, mum.”

“Well hasn’t that blonde girl found him yet? She was here, said he needed  _ her _ .”

Donna froze. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“You think I can’t read between the lines, lady?” Her mother’s voice finally took on that typical stern tone as she stepped forward. “I know just what you’ve been up to, even if it’s in space and not some office. Has he got money?”

“It’s not like that,” said Donna quietly.

“Those kind of men are all the same, and he doesn’t seem that different for an alien. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times, they’ll use you till they find the next one — and a younger one, at that.”

Maybe a year ago, Donna would have given in, listened to her mother. She knew Rose meant something to the Doctor, even if she didn’t know what.

But she did know the Doctor. And she knew what she’d seen in his eyes the last few times they’d locked with hers. When they’d nearly kissed; when he’d almost died and only been able to ask for her; when he’d told her there was something they had to talk about once all this was over. Her mother wasn’t going to stop her from hearing what it was.

She was still carrying on. “ _ When _ will you stop throwing yourself at them like—”

“He asked me along first, actually,” Donna cut across. “And I turned him down. Realized what a mistake that was, but we found each other again. Cause we had to. Your new best friend Rose told me that. We’re meant to be together.”

Her mother blinked in shock at her pushback. “Meant to?” A short laugh escaped. “You’re talking destiny now?  _ You _ ?”

“Donna’s mark’s in alien, Sylvia,” said her grandad. “She’s sure of it.”

“Oh, so now you think—”

“I don’t know what I think,” said Donna, not wanting to have to tell her mother the truth, that she knew what the Doctor had on his back, and it certainly wasn’t her name. “What I  _ know _ is it doesn’t matter. He needs me, and I need him. End of story.”

“You said practically the same about Lance,” her mum reminded. “And how’d that turn out? He ran off after all that fuss with you disappearing.”

Donna closed her eyes for a moment, trying not to let that sting. It didn’t really, and only because of the very man her mother was trying to dissuade her from. “How do you think I ended up with Lance, mum? Do you think maybe it was because I grew up thinking I was some kind of failure for being born with something I had  _ no _ control over and could never be loved because of it? Do you think maybe it was cause I was taught that if a man could be bothered to look at me twice I should count myself lucky? Do you think just  _ maybe _ it was because I wanted  _ you _ to finally be proud of me? Happy for me?”

Her mother had fallen back a step with every question as Donna had advanced, until she was practically backed up against the opposite wall in the hallway.

“Just once in my life I wanted to do something right by you. And it all went wrong — and probably you’ll say you knew it all along — but it went wrong in the best way for me. Cause meeting him, traveling out there with the Doctor, it’s shown me how much all of the stuff I’m supposed to have done by now doesn’t  _ matter _ . I can’t let you down anymore, mum, cause I’ve got a whole different life planned out than what you ever dreamed of. And I hope someday that’ll be enough for you.”

Donna turned and marched away from them both.

She stopped at the front door and looked back. “For the record, Lance didn’t run off. He died after poisoning me for six months and trying to feed me to a giant alien spider, which the Doctor saved me from. If it weren’t for him, you wouldn’t even have a daughter anymore, so you can bet I’m going back for his skinny arse.”

“Good luck, sweetheart!” Her Gramps called just before the door slammed. She looked back to the house briefly. It was probably the last she’d be welcome for a while. Felt too good in the moment to worry much, though. With new resolve, she faced the blue box again and strode right through the doors.

Of course, none of that back there would do any good if she couldn’t get this ship off her mother’s lawn and back into space. She could manage the Vortex, perhaps, but she had no idea how to land it on the Crucible. Donna waited to see if another flash of insight or memory might occur to her. No such luck.

“Look, I know what he said in that message, and I don’t want to hurt you — or me, for that matter. But there’s got to be some kind of way to fly this thing without knowing the coordinates, cos you take us different places with the wrong ones all the time anyway.”

The ship was silent. Donna hoped she hadn’t offended.

“I’ve seen a world where the Doctor’s died, and it’s awful. I can’t let it happen again. Please, he’s so important to so many people. And to me.” She hesitated for a breath longer before confessing to an empty room, “I love him.”

The lights suddenly turned up very bright and the time rotor pulsed up and down. They weren’t moving, though. Was that just her way of saying she was happy? What, had she been  _ hoping _ ?

“Yeah, yeah,” Donna blustered. “I know you want to help him as much as I do. He needs us.”

The TARDIS gave a hum, then Donna started in surprise as one of the panels lifted up and drew back, revealing another panel underneath. Only instead of controls, there was a strange gel-like substance covering it. Donna stepped forward to get a better look, and saw a couple of divets  that were about the right size for a pair of hands.

“Oh, don’t tell me. I’ve got to touch that, too.”

The ship hummed again.

“I hate you both,” Donna grumbled. Then she squeezed her eyes shut and plunged both hands into the strange-looking gel.

The gel slid to cover her hands, and Donna suspected she wouldn’t be able to pull them out until this trip had ended. It was not the grossest thing to ever happen to her on her travels, she had to admit. She still wasn’t happy about it. Best to get it over with as soon as possible.

“Okay, now you gotta take us to the Doctor, right?”

At her words, the time rotor began to pulse up and down, and the ship began to dematerialize. Donna sent up whatever prayer she could think of off the top of her head that this would work and they’d actually end up back on the Crucible. And where the Doctor was. That was key. God, she hoped he was alright and hadn’t done something stupid in the meantime.

They landed, and the gel receded. Donna shook her hands out, though there didn’t actually seem to be any residual gel to get rid of. Still, she was tempted to go wash her hands. If things weren’t so dire...

She looked down at the doors. No one seemed to be trying to get in, and she couldn’t hear any Dalek voices on the other side. She hoped that didn’t mean they’d missed the Crucible entirely.

Wasn’t much use trying to be sneaky, was there? Whoever was out there would have heard her the minute she landed. So Donna pulled her jacket back on, grabbed up the mallet she’d used on the Sontaran, and walked down to the doors.

She had to hold in a cheer when she opened them to something familiar. They were in that room Davros had been in when he’d intercepted the subwave network! He was still there and looking at her, she supposed, though it was hard to tell when she couldn’t exactly decide where his eyes were. Was it just that blue thing in the middle?

There was a whole group of people, some she recognized and some she didn’t, all off to one side of the room, just as silent and surprised as he was. Among them was the Doctor, and she felt a smile stretch wide over her face.

“Happy to still see me, Spaceman?” She couldn’t help echoing.

He made like a mime for a moment, hands and face all pressed up against some kind of invisible barrier, which turned out to actually be real when a force field lit up wherever he’d made contact. “Donna!”

“Oh, thank  _ God _ !” Martha looked almost as relieved as Spaceman, Donna was pleasantly surprised to note. She’d always liked Martha.

Donna made to run straight for them, only that Davros fellow raised his hand and electricity shot from it like the one bad guy in Star Wars. Not the one in the mask. She’d only ever seen them once on the insistence of an ex-boyfriend, though maybe they warranted another look if they were going to be educational!

All this Donna thought while bracing herself for some kind of horrible pain or possible death. There was no time to duck. Only instead of crumpling to the floor in agony, Donna merely staggered back a couple steps, the mallet slipping from her grasp, while the electricity seemed to crackle within and around her body. It didn’t hurt any more than a mild itch under the skin, and when she threw out her hands, it was suddenly expelled just like Davros had done.

“Woah! Okay.” Donna looked up at the others, all staring at her again in shock.

The Doctor looked about ready to climb the walls of his cell, he was so frantic. But he froze when Donna met his gaze, his brow furrowing. “Donna, your eyes!”

Donna felt her mouth drop open. “Seriously, you’re gonna do this  _ now _ ?”

He shook his head. “No, Donna, they’re glowing!”

Oh.

She came up to the other side of whatever barrier had been placed around him. “Yeah, I thought that’d stopped.”

“Doc, that looks like regeneration energy,” said Captain Jack.

“Or Bad Wolf,” said Rose.

“Regeneration? I thought that was just a you thing,” said some blonde woman to the Doctor, who didn’t even seem to hear it.

“Donna, what happened to you in the TARDIS?” He demanded.

“You mean besides nearly falling to death — Oi!” She only really registered Davros’ second attempt to hit her when she stumbled a bit as it bounced off her. She caught her balance by bracing a hand against Spaceman’s cell and felt a slight push when he brought his hand up to the same spot. With her other hand, she shook out the weird lightning blast in her attacker’s general direction. “Oi, do you mind?”

“Dalek Caan, why does she not die?” Davros snarled at some slimy, deformed thing sitting up high with a spotlight on it. “Your prophecy foretold it!”

“Pretty sure his prophecy’s full of it, mate,” another man Donna didn’t know remarked.

“It’s been wrong so far,” The woman called Sarah Jane agreed. When had she even got here?

“Did you open the TARDIS?” The Doctor was trying to continue his questioning, and she looked back at him. Struggling to follow all the rest of it was driving her mad.

“What, the doors?”

“Of course not the doors! You were already inside it!”

“Well then what was I supposed to open?”

“Nothing! Did the TARDIS do it? Was she trying to save you both?”

“Donna, if you’ve become the Bad Wolf then you can save us,” Rose told her, hands pressed against her own cell. “Get rid of the Daleks.”

“No, don’t do that,” the Doctor immediately disagreed. “Just let me out so I can fix it—”

“Wait, if she’s become the same thing Rose became, does that mean she can fix  _ me _ ?” Jack was looking between her and the Doctor now. “Can we do that first?”

“It’s not a queue, Jack! Nothing’s being done, I just have to set it right.”

“But if she’s harnessed Bad Wolf anyway then shouldn’t she use it? They’re trying to destroy all of Reality!” Rose exclaimed.

“Does anyone actually want to catch me up?” Donna broke in, hands planted on her hips. “What’s the big thing about wolves, anyway?”

Rose, Jack, and the Doctor all stopped arguing amongst themselves.

“Is it safe to say she doesn’t have it then?” Asked Jack.

The Doctor nodded. “Yeah.”

Donna rolled her eyes. She could have told them all that if they’d just bothered to actually talk  _ to _ her rather than  _ about  _ her.

“Hey Boss, I think Davros called reinforcements!” Shouted the man whose name she still hadn’t gotten just as a door slid open to reveal a bright red Dalek.

_ “The female will be permanently eliminated!” _

She recognized that voice, if Daleks could have individual voices. That was the one that had had her dropped down the bloody incinerator, wasn’t it? Her eyes narrowed.

“Donna, get back to the TARDIS!” The Doctor shouted.

“Bit late for that! Anyway, I think I’ve got a handle on this now.” Donna planted her feet and stared down the red pepper pot. “Want to have another go then?”

_ “Exterminate!” _

The same shot she’d seen fell the Doctor came straight for her — and without her even sliding back an inch she managed to catch and release it. Instead of sparking against a wall like the last two had done, however, the rebound went wide and hit what looked like a control panel sitting off to the side. It exploded, and Donna backed away from the shrapnel into a familiar chest.

She looked up into Spaceman’s face. “How did you—?”

“The containment field came down. It must have been linked to that panel.”

“What have you done?” Davros howled, but he wasn’t looking at any of them. He’d wheeled that chair of his around to face the red Dalek still in the doorway. “Dalek Supreme, what have you done?”

The Dalek didn’t answer. It didn’t even move.

“Oh.” The Doctor was looking around, his mouth hanging open in a perfect circle that meant he’d just realized something incredibly important. “ _ Oh _ , I see. You didn’t quite trust them all, did you? Your new Daleks, your children. Not when you’d weakened yourself to create them, not when they looked down on you. You couldn’t quite give up control. Built yourself a personal panel that overrode everything else, only you didn’t anticipate it getting destroyed.”

“And it controlled all the Daleks?” Martha asked.

The Doctor smirked. “Better than that. It controls the Reality bomb, doesn’t it?”

Davros was scowling now.

“Sorry, Reality bomb?” Asked Donna.

Spaceman blinked and looked at her. “Oh. Right. You weren’t there for that bit. The planets were an engine for a bomb that was going to destroy all of Reality. It’s fine now, though.”

“What, just like that?”

“Just like that,” he repeated with a grin. “All thanks to you.”

“Come off it,” she scoffed, then gave a squawk of surprise when he spun her around and pulled her into a hug.

“Never,” he said right in her ear, and Donna was actually rather glad to be in his arms because she was fairly certain she’d just gone a bit weak in the knees. His voice lost what she told herself had been an unintentionally husky quality as he added, “I thought I’d lost you.”

“No chance,” she murmured right back.

“So if it’s not the Bad Wolf, then what is wrong with Donna?” Asked Rose, and they both pulled back out of the hug. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“Er, I don’t really know,” the Doctor admitted.

Donna found she couldn’t quite look at Rose — her mum’s insinuations had been totally irrational, she  _ knew _ that — not that the blonde was making much effort either with her eyes fixed on the Doctor, and she instead spotted Martha grinning at her. And she wasn’t the only one, because Donna noticed Sarah Jane with a little smile of her own next, and Jack gave her a cheeky little salute when she caught his gaze. What was that about?

“Suppose we should take care of that next,” Spaceman was adding.

“Your typical arrogance, Doctor, assuming you’ve already won. You will suffer!” Davros declared, raising his arm for a third time.

Donna felt the Doctor’s hands on her shoulders as he prepared to put her behind him.

She glanced back at him. “Oi, Time Boy, considering I’m the one with magic immunity I think I should stay in front.”

He looked down. “Right, okay.”

“I’m not sure it matters,” said Sarah Jane. “Nothing seems to be happening.”

They both looked. Davros was pointing his hand with the weird glove about as hard as he could, but no lightning effect occurred this time.

“You wired the controls for your own  _ gauntlet  _ into that thing?” The Doctor shook his head. “Blimey, it’s a wonder the life support systems are still online!”

“So, is that it, then? We’ve definitely stopped him?” Martha checked.

“Yeah, I think that about does it.”

Donna looked at the unmoving red Dalek again. “What about the Daleks, though? I didn’t actually kill all of them, did I?” She knew they were the worst of the universe, but she wasn’t sure how to feel if she had.

“No, they should still be alive inside their shells. Helpless. They’ll need someone to care for them,” said the Doctor. His gaze fell on Davros. “Someone like their Creator. How about that for a final victory, Davros?”

If looks could kill, Davros would actually be doing pretty well for himself at the moment. 

“Instead of destroying life you can learn to nurture it. Walled off in your own separate second from the rest of the universe, of course,” the Doctor continued, then shared another smile with her.

“Can we go home now?” The older blonde woman Donna still didn’t know demanded. She was standing right in front of the doors to the blue box.

“Right, good idea, Jackie! Oh, that’s Jackie Tyler, Rose’s mum,” Spaceman told her. “And that’s Mickey.”

Martha turned her head sharply. “Sorry?”

“Er, Mickey.” The final stranger in the group gave a wave. “Mickey Smith.”

Martha was staring at him like she’d never seen another person in her life before. Interesting.

Donna decided to rescue her friend. “Donna Noble.”

“Oh, believe me, I know,” said Mickey, glancing at the Doctor. Okay seriously, what had happened while she was gone?

But her Spaceman hurried over to open the doors and usher everyone through. Donna brought up the rear.

“So what about the planets?”

“Um, they’re stuck,” he answered, tugging on his ear. “They’ll all have to be moved manually.”

Donna blew out a breath. “That’s gonna be a long night.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “But you first.”

She shook her head. “If Huon particles couldn’t kill me in six months, I think I’ll be alright with whatever this is for a little while longer.” So far it seemed to be helping rather than hurting her, anyway.

She stepped into the ship, but he caught her arm before she could head up the ramp. Donna turned back around.

He entered as well, pulling the door shut behind him and keeping his voice lowered for some semblance of privacy as he said, “This isn’t something we should be taking a risk on.”

“So you want to risk twenty-seven planets instead? How am I more important than that?”

A pained expression crossed his face. “Donna, there’s something I should tell you—”

“Doctor,” Donna said, and he stopped. “You have been trying to tell me something all day. How about instead of  _ saying _ you’ve got to tell me something, you just say it.”

He stared at her a moment before nodding. “Right, good. Good point. Here goes then.”

Donna watched and waited as patiently as she could while he looked at her, then away, then back again and drew in a deep breath.

“Careful, there’s some glass on the floor,” Martha called out to everyone up near the console, just as the Doctor had finally opened his mouth.

“Surprised it’s not worse in here after dropping into a molten z-neutrino core,” remarked Jack.

Spaceman looked over to the others. “Glass, what glass?”

God, was he distractible! She was tempted to haul him off to the nearest empty room and lock the door, except then she recalled this particular diversion was mostly her fault.

“Right, that would be the jar,” Donna sighed. She’d totally forgotten about the mess it had made when it broke open.

The Doctor turned back to her. “Which jar?”

She rolled her eyes. “Which do you think? The one you keep under the console, dumbo!”

“The one with his hand?” Martha’s nose was scrunched up as she looked around the grating. “I don’t see it anywhere.”

“Yeah, well it sort of disappeared,” Donna explained.

“Sorry, I’m not really following this part,” said Sarah Jane.

“I haven’t been following any of it!” Exclaimed Jackie. “This always happens around you,” she said to the Doctor, who Donna realized was staring not at Jackie but at her with a look of near horror.

“Donna, when did it disappear?”

“I was trying to tell you earlier. We were falling down the incinerator, and the hand had started glowing again, and I could hear it—”

“Hear it?”

“Yes. It — well it sounded like you. Saying my name.” She couldn’t look at any of them while she said that. It’d be too shaming. She studied one of the coral struts instead. “So I touched it, and it broke, and then all this golden light sort of rushed into me. I don’t know.”

“So that really was regeneration energy we were seeing earlier?” Asked Jack.

“Oh, so that’s stopped again? Brilliant,” said Donna with a wry smirk. “What about my back? How’s it doing?”

“Your back?” The Doctor repeated.

“Yeah, my mark was all glowing, too. Least I’ve stopped coughing the stuff up.”

She didn’t like everyone staring at her so scared and unsure. Donna made her way up the ramp and to the controls.

“Look, can we just get started before Davros invites himself aboard or something? Twenty-seven planets aren’t going to move themselves, and my mum’s already in a snit today.”

She initiated takeoff, which seemed to cause something of a stir amongst the others.

“Woah, maybe let the Boss do that?”

“She knows what she’s doing,” said Spaceman as he followed after her and continued where she’d left off.

“How?” Rose wanted to know. “Is it cause of the regeneration energy?”

He cast her an odd look. “No, it’s cause I taught her.”

Sarah Jane made some noise that was a cross between an exclamation of surprise and a laugh. “ _ You _ letting someone else fly this thing? Well, if I was having any doubts before, I certainly believe it now.”

Donna looked at her. “Believe what?”

“When did you see your mum?” The Doctor asked right over her.

Donna shot him a look, but answered, “I stopped home. Emergency Protocol.”

“And then you got yourself back to the Crucible? How did you manage that?”

“With the goo machine you’ve got hiding under here,” she answered, rapping on the control panel twice.

She was afraid he was about to lose his impressive eyebrows in his hairline by this point. “The TARDIS gave you access to the telepathic circuits?”

“Is that what that was?”

“She shouldn’t have done that. That’s really dangerous if you haven’t had any training. One little bit of indecision or distraction, and you could’ve ended up anywhere!”

“Well it’s a good thing I was so worried about you, then, isn’t it?” She snapped. “Now can you stop with the interrogation!”

He deflated slightly, at least somewhat chastened. But then he turned on the puppy dog eyes. “Donna,  _ I’m  _ worried about  _ you _ . Humans aren’t meant to interact with regeneration energy. It should’ve created some sort of biological metacrisis.”

Whatever that was, she didn’t imagine it was good. “Is that what’s happened to me?”

“No. That’s what’s so strange.” He was looking her up and down as he said it, and Donna pretended not to notice when his eyes strayed to her cleavage and remained there a while. At least he hadn’t pulled out the specs yet. “The energy protected you out there from Davros and the Dalek Supreme almost as if you’d just regenerated yourself. You said it rushed into you?”

She nodded.

“But it shouldn’t have. You’re not compatible.”

“Maybe not with just anyone’s regeneration energy,” Jack suggested. “But she could be with yours.”

Donna looked round at him. “Sorry, what?”

“No, maybe Jack has a point,” said Martha, doing her best to get a bit closer with all the bodies in the room. “Did the Time Lords ever try to transfer regeneration energy to their soulmates? Were there other Time Lords with human soulmates?”

Donna turned to look at the Doctor. His gaze kept darting between her and Martha, and he seemed afraid to say anything at all.

Donna didn’t have that problem.

“Sorry,  _ what _ ?”

Martha’s eyes widened. “You haven’t told her?”

“Not for lack of trying!” Ordinarily, Donna might have been amazed they could even hear him at that decibel, but at the moment her mind was preoccupied with something else.

“Told me what? Doctor, told me what?”

“How do you not know?” It was Rose who asked. She had her arms crossed and shoulders hunched and was looking at her like Donna’s mum or one of her friends back home always did when they thought she was being particularly dim.

“It’s not her fault,” said the Doctor. When she looked back at him, his tone softened. “Donna, the name on your back...the TARDIS doesn’t translate it because it doesn’t need to. Her library wouldn’t have any books on learning it because she’s built for pilots who already know how to speak it. And  _ the  _ Library wouldn’t have had any books on it because, well, you heard the Architect. I shouldn’t exist.” He took hold of her hands. “Your mark is in Circular Gallifreyan.”

“Your language.” Donna barely heard herself, her voice was so soft. The Doctor still nodded. “Your name.”

“Yes.”

The timid smile he wore slowly fell as Donna shook her head. “But that — that can’t be right. You don’t have my name.”

His head tilted quizzically. “Well, yes I do. You, er, you said you knew that.”

Donna gaped at him. “When did I say that?”

“When you told me about your mark! You said you knew about mine!” He reminded her.

She stepped back, her hands slipping out of his grasp. “That you  _ had _ one, not that it was my name! You think that’s all the reaction I would’ve had if I knew it was my name? Just ‘oh, by the way, I know about it’?”

“Well, what did you think I had? How did you even know I had one?”

“That was probably my fault,” Martha said, eyes on the grating.

“Martha!”

“Oh, don’t get mad at her,” said Donna, then paused. “Wait. Did you know he had my name the whole time?”

Her friend still didn’t look up. “Er…”

“Martha!”

“Your name’s Martha?” Asked Mickey. Donna barely refrained from a retort for that rather obvious question.

“Er, yeah,” said Martha, looking up with a slight smile, probably glad to have someone not yelling her name at her. Donna would feel bad, but then this was supposed to be one of the most important moments of her life, and it was being witnessed by a whole peanut gallery of her idiot Spaceman’s friends who all already knew. 

“Sorry, do we need to all go around and share names?” She turned her gaze back on said idiot Spaceman. “And while we’re on the subject, who all got to find out before I did? Just so I know.”

“Donna, I thought you were  _ dead _ —”

“So you saved it for then?”

“No! It just sort of happened that way. I don’t know.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You were gonna do something really stupid before I showed up, weren’t you?”

A handful of yeses from the others rose up before he could answer.

“I thought you’d died,” was his stubborn rebuttal.

“So are we actually going anywhere or are you just gonna keep us in space?” Jackie demanded. “Some of us need to get home, you know.”

“Are you kidding?” Mickey dropped into the vacant jumpseat. “I could watch this for hours.”

“I’ll get the popcorn,” Jack offered.

“No one’s getting popcorn!” The Doctor snapped. Probably didn’t want them stealing the good stuff they’d picked up on the Cinema Planet. “Jackie’s right, you all need to go home. Especially you lot from the parallel universe.”

He began a complicated sequence of flipping switches, pulling levers, and pressing buttons that even Donna was having trouble keeping up with. As he rounded the console, he nearly went headlong over Rose who’d planted herself in his path.

“What do you mean ‘you lot’? Who all are you sending back to the parallel universe?”

“Well,” he said, edging around her carefully. “The, uh, the people from there?”

“But I’m not  _ from _ there. I belong in this world. With you.”

“Rose—”

“I don’t care that our names don’t match. I know I’m supposed to be with you!”

Hold on, they both knew the truth now, not like in the parallel world, and she  _ still _ wanted to treat Donna and the Doctor’s relationship like it was a non-issue? Not that they’d actually managed to get  _ in _ to a relationship, but Rose didn’t have to know that.

Donna had to step back as he made a full ring around the console and passed her, Rose determinedly dogging his every step.

“Rose, you’ve barely gotten to live your own life. There’s so much ahead of you. Don’t you think you should give it a chance?”

“Why? You weren’t giving soulmates a chance until Dalek Caan brought that whole thing up. You hadn’t even told Donna!”

He cast her a guilty glance.

This was really happening, wasn’t it? Donna looked down. She didn’t want to watch what her mother had told her would happen play out. Bad enough she was about to be passed over yet again, and by her own bloody soulmate no less.

She felt someone brush shoulders with her and found Martha had placed herself at her side. Donna tried to convey her thanks with a smile but thought she failed rather miserably.

What the Doctor said, however, was, “You don’t know the whole story.”

“But I know how you feel about me. Maybe my name’s not on your back, but you like it. When I said it, that first time, it meant something to you. I saw it,” she insisted.

“Rose…”

Donna lifted her head. He was hesitating. There was something he was holding onto, something he was afraid to say.

“Doctor.” He looked right at her, and now she could see the indecision in his gaze, too. “Whatever it is, tell her. It’s kinder.”

Rose looked back and forth between them. “What is she talking about? Tell me what?”

The Doctor flipped a final switch, and the TARDIS landed.

“I do like your name, Rose. I liked it back on Gallifrey, too. I never told you, but my people used it as a name as well.  _ Arktyior. _ ”

It was the first time Donna — or any of them, she suspected — had ever heard him speak his own language apart from the name of his planet. The way the single word seemed to roll off his tongue, the very sound of it, was something else entirely. She felt mesmerized.

He drew in a breath, visibly pulling himself together after that. “And it was my granddaughter’s name.”

Beside her, Martha’s mouth fell open. And she wasn’t the only one. Rose took a step back, a look of horror on her face.

“No.”

“I’m sorry. I care about you a great deal, Rose. But not the way you want me to.”

Donna turned away as Rose’s eyes began to well up with tears; it was a hard thing to have to learn in front of all these people. Sarah Jane and Jack were both keeping their gazes lowered as well. She heard a pair of footsteps run for the door and the slam of it behind them. Donna knew without looking who it was.

Rose’s mother hurried after as far as the door but paused and turned back. “Thank you.” She left without waiting for a response.

No one said anything for a long moment. Then Mickey stood from the jump seat.

“Well Boss, safe to say I misread that one.”

“You should be off too, Mickey,” The Doctor said shortly. “The walls between worlds will be closing permanently again, and we’ve got to get back over.”

The other man frowned but took a step towards the door.

“Wait!” Martha started forward, and Mickey turned around. “When you heard my name...that meant something to you. You have a Martha?”

He raised his hand and touched the spot on his back where his mark resided. “Yeah. You have mine?”

Martha nodded and stepped closer. “Would you want to stay?” She turned quickly to the Doctor. “It’s not going to blow up the universe or anything, is it? It’s just, everything I’ve seen today, maybe it’s worth giving this soulmate thing a try.”

Donna found herself smiling at the unexpected turn things had taken. Who would’ve thought?

Spaceman, for his part, seemed puzzled. “What about Tom?”

Martha grimaced, and Donna cast her eyes up to the ceiling. “She’s not wearing the ring, you prawn.” Trust him to bring it up in the most tactless way!

“Oh! Sorry. Well, and congratulations, I suppose.”

Martha and Mickey exchanged shy glances, the sort Donna had always heard about when her friends or neighbors had waxed poetic about soulmates. The sort she’d never get now.

Jack was apparently thinking along the same vein. “There, you see? That’s the way it’s supposed to go.” He turned a grin on both her and the Doctor. “How did you two get that mixed up? You’ve known each other how long?”

“Since two Christmases ago,” Martha stated when they both refused to.

The captain let out a laugh. “Seriously? Doc, c’mon!”

“It sounds as though there was some miscommunication on both sides,” said Sarah Jane about as diplomatically as possible. It didn’t make Donna feel any less embarrassed.

Why did everything in her life always have to be some joke? Why did she have to be the one to meet her soulmate nearly two years ago and never realize it?

And if the Doctor really had known it was her name on his back all this time, why had he waited till now to say anything?

She felt stifled with all these people here and unable to act on any sort of impulse. She’d barely even gotten a moment to think, much less figure out how she felt about it. Donna found she, too, needed to get away from it all.

The ramp to one of the corridors was right beside her, and Donna did her best to slip away unnoticed; Martha and Mickey were too caught up in each other, Sarah Jane and Jack were questioning and teasing the Doctor, and Spaceman himself was concentrating on the controls to get them back to their universe. No one was going to miss her as per usual, even if they were all talking about her personal life.

She made it about two paces into the corridor before the now familiar call of “Donnaaaa!” rang out behind her. 

Donna stopped with a sigh. And to think she’d been bemoaning the lack of romance.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, everyone. This is it. At long last, Donna and the Doctor will come to terms with the discovery that they are in fact soulmates, and I sincerely hope that it lives up to all of your expectations. I don't really know how to thank you all properly; the response on this story is like nothing I ever imagined. I'm already working on more Doctor/Donna content for you all, though perhaps nothing quite so ambitious as this one (at least for a bit). For a final time, thanks and love to my beta colorofmymind, who proofs all these chapters so you all don't have to suffer through my misuse of commas. And thanks to everyone who has read, kudos'd, commented, and bookmarked the story. I've looked forward to hearing from you all with every update, and it really does mean more than you can know to me. At any rate, I hope you enjoy the conclusion to Lost in Translation!

“I mean, I get Donna not being able to read Circular Gallifreyan, I really do,” Jack was saying as the Doctor kept his eyes on the controls, hoping that by pointedly ignoring the other man he’d simply run out of steam. “But you didn’t think it’d maybe be worth a mention that you had her name?”

He didn’t really have the patience to explain the complicated mess they’d made of things for themselves, and he knew Donna wasn’t much inclined to go into it for the others’ benefit either — but she ought to have said something by now.

The Doctor looked up to find they were short a person, and the back of Donna’s brown jacket was just disappearing down a corridor. Something was very wrong.

He got them safely into the Vortex and charged up the ramp after her. “Donna!”

She’d not made it very far, and so he skidded to a stop. Donna didn’t even really look at him as she leaned against a wall and pressed the heel of her hand to a temple. “Yeah, Spaceman.”

“Everything alright?” He couldn’t help worrying as he watched her. They’d assumed she’d been able to safely absorb the regeneration energy, but what if that had been wrong? “Any kind of pain? Headaches? Memories that aren’t your own?”

“No. Is that what should’ve happened?”

“It’s the theory. Truth is, there’s never actually been a human-Time Lord metacrisis before.”

“Just like there’s never been human-Time Lord soulmates before,” she guessed wryly.

“No.” The Doctor looked down. She wasn’t happy. “Donna, I’m sorry—”

“Oh, don’t start,” she said. “There’s so much going on right now, and if you start—” She stopped herself. Her breath was becoming a bit patchy, how it got when she was desperately trying not to cry.

“What can I do?”

“You can give me a minute. I just need a minute.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

Donna looked at him.

“Sorry, was that a minute alone, or do you want to come back with me?”

She let out a shaky sigh. “Of course I’m coming back with you.” When he passed her a handkerchief, she nodded to him once and dabbed at her eyes.

“Donna, if you need more than a minute, that’s okay.”

“No, there’s too much. There are twenty-seven planets out there that we’ve got to put back, and you’re not gonna tell all of them out there to wait for me.” She waved his handkerchief in the direction of the console room before shoving it back into his hands. “I am used to being an afterthought.”

“Donna—”

She was already marching back down the ramp with her head held high, and he had little choice but to follow her.

The others looked up at their entrance. Jack was grinning, probably with another remark on the tip of his tongue.

“Leave it,” the Doctor warned.

The captain sobered rather quickly. “Doctor, Donna, I was just—”

“Never mind, there’s still a lot to do,” Donna dismissed. “We’ve got twenty-seven planets that need moved out of the Medusa Cascade, including ours.”

“We?” Asked Sarah.

“Yes, we. I do let other people fly my ship when the need arises,” the Doctor said with a pointed look. “And this is going to be complicated enough to need all hands on deck. Six of us, that’s a proper number for once.”

“You mean there’s really meant to be a crew?” Asked Martha. She’d been chatting away with Mickey before now. Getting to know each other, reveling in that special moment. He envied that.

“That’s what TARDIS’ were built for. Now, I’m assigning each of you very specific tasks, so pay attention.”

The Doctor soon had each of his remaining friends stationed around the console ready for his signal as he got them back into the Medusa Cascade.

“Alright, we’ll give it a go with Clom first, and if we mess up — well, it’s Clom, no one’ll miss it.”

He’d been hoping that’d pull a smile at least from Donna, but all she did was shake her head. The Doctor actually locked the TARDIS onto the uninhabited No-Longer-Lost Moon of Poosh with a sigh and pointed to Mickey to begin.

The ship was rattling more heavily than usual, but for once none of his companions were complaining. They all were too busy trying out flying for the first time. There were some scattered whoops and cheers, and the mood lifted somewhat. He tried catching Donna’s eye once or twice, and while she seemed happier than before she never held his gaze for very long.

She was right that there was simply too much going on. If he could just have a moment to talk to her, to try and gauge how she was taking the news, he’d feel much better. For once he wanted to be able to tell the whole universe to just stop spinning a minute. Donna had only just saved all of it, after all, weren’t they owed that much?

With each trip they made, they were able to go just a little faster as everyone got accustomed to their roles in piloting the ship. It was still a very long process, though, and by the sixth planet most of their excited grins had faded.

“So, what’s everyone doing after this?” Jack asked four planets later, clearly an attempt to break the somewhat awkward silence that had settled over the group. It garnered a couple chuckles here and there.

“How come it had to be twenty-seven planets?” Mickey wondered aloud as they left Adipose 3 in its rightful place. “Five would’ve been enough.”

“Alright, last but not least, the Earth!” The Doctor announced, and again there were smiles. He’d had a feeling that would be a morale booster. When they finally shuddered to a stop hanging above his friends’ home back in the proper galaxy, everyone stepped back from the controls and clapped. Hugs were exchanged, and his hearts sped up a little when Donna turned to him on his right — only she froze, then reached out and patted him on the arm.

“Not bad, Spaceman.”

“Right.”

She wasn’t meeting his eyes, which was good since he wasn’t sure he could hide the hurt in his own.

He made quick work of landing the TARDIS on Earth now, picking a spot in Central London. Normally he might have felt bad dumping them all off in one go, but he thought they understood the delicate nature of things at the moment.

“Here we are, back home. You’ll be alright Mickey?”

“I’ll make sure he’s settled,” said Martha as she pulled out of a hug with Donna.

“Yeah, you will,” said Jack with a smirk.

“Stay out of it, Cheesecake.”

The Doctor followed the bickering trio down the ramp and to the doors. They all turned back just outside to face him.

“You’ll be alright, Boss?”

“Oh, sure. You know me.”

“That’s an ‘us’ now, remember?” Jack pointed at him. “Just get back in there and sweep her off her feet.”

“Yeah, Donna’s good for you, so try not to mess that up,” Martha advised him.

“Maybe lay off the whole ‘Curse of the Time Lords’ bit,” was Mickey’s suggestion.

“Yes, thank you,” he said with some impatience.

Jack snapped off a salute and gave him a grin. “You’re gonna do great.”

“And let us know how it goes!” Martha added.

“Alright, go on.” He waved them off, then turned and nearly ran into Sarah Jane. “Oh! Sorry.”

“That’s alright. I’m in a bit of a hurry myself. Got to get back to Luke — I’ll have to tell you about that someday,” she said with a smile. “Doctor, if there’s anything we can do—”

“Oh, Sarah, I think that’s part of the problem.” He’d always relied on his friends before, but this was something that should have been between him and Donna alone.

She grimaced, then folded him into a hug. “I’m sure it’ll all work out.”

He wished he could have all their confidence, but when Donna had yet to even smile at him since she’d found out it was hard to maintain a positive outlook. Even setting aside just how wrong it all had gone, there was Mickey’s remark to consider. Curse of the Time Lords was perhaps a touch melodramatic, but there’d been a reason all those years ago he’d decided the idea of having a human soulmate was ridiculous. A reason he’d tried very hard to forget about once Donna had entered his life. Though he supposed if she had no interest in being his soulmate, the question of her lifespan in relation to his hardly mattered, about the dimmest silver lining he’d ever encountered.

“Thank you,” he managed anyway.

Sarah Jane began walking away and gave a last wave over her shoulder which he returned. Then he drew in a breath and reentered the ship.

It felt even quieter inside the TARDIS than usual. Donna was leaning back against the railing, her eyes on the floor. She’d been so brilliant and unstoppable before on the Crucible; why did she seem to believe something had already defeated her now? Had he misread her feelings before? Was the idea of her and him really so terrible?

He came up the ramp slowly. “Donna, please tell me what you’re thinking.”

She shrugged, and there was something so hopeless in the gesture that it tore at his hearts. “I just don’t know what I’m feeling about this.”

“What is ‘this’?” He asked her. “Is it how you found out, or is it that it’s me?”

She looked up at him at last, and she seemed more shocked at his words than anything. “Of course it’s not—”

Her phone began ringing. Again. The Doctor was about a breath away from hurling it into space.

“My folks. They probably want to know what just happened with the Earth moving. This should be short,” she assured him. “I didn’t exactly leave on good terms.”

He wanted to ask about that, but then Donna had the phone to her ear.

“Yeah, Gramps. It’s all fine.” A short pause, and a furtive glance in his direction. “Yes, I got him back.” Another pause, longer this time, and he watched as Donna’s eyes widened. “She does? I’m not sure if — alright, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Alright, see you.” When she hung up, she was back to massaging her temples. “We have to stop by my mum’s.”

“I thought we were going to talk,” he pointed out.

Donna walked around the console away from him. “We will, but this is my family.”

“Just because it’s your family doesn’t mean they can’t wait.” How was he supposed to put her first if she kept adding things to what they had to do first?

“Well, I already agreed. Anyway, mum and I already had one fight today, and if she’s really planning to apologize it’s best not to keep her waiting.”

She started entering in the coordinates he’d shown her matched up with a spot just across the road from her house and stood aside to let him finish off the set with proper time coordinates.

“What did you fight about?”

Donna kept her eyes on the controls. “You, a bit.”

“Me?”

The tips of her ears were turning red. “It was stupid. Just let me get this over with.”

They landed, and the Doctor quietly followed Donna up the front path and into her mother’s house. They found both Wilfred and Sylvia sitting in the front room.

“Er, hello,” said the Doctor. 

Wilf stood. “Good to see you’re alright, sir. Was that you and Donna bringing the Earth back? They’re saying the sky looks right again, with all the right stars and everything.”

“Yes, it’s all fine now.” There was a sudden clap of thunder and the sound of rain. “Well, there might be some basic atmospheric disturbance, but it’ll pass.”

“You’ve stopped glowing, sweetheart,” Donna’s grandfather observed.

“Yeah, that should be fine, too,” he said. Well, he’d yet to have a chance to do an extensive study, but there was no point in worrying her family if Donna was seemingly unharmed.

Donna and her mother had remained silent through all of this, alternately sneaking looks at each other before pointedly turning away.

“Why don’t we leave you two to chat?” Wilf suggested, valiantly persevering in the face of his daughter and granddaughter’s reticence. “Did you want tea, Doctor?”

He didn’t, but he knew the answer he was supposed to give. “That’d be lovely, thanks.”

Wilf took him back through to the kitchen. A final glance back before he shut the door let him glimpse Donna watching him leave, a pinched expression in her features. 

Had she wanted him to stay? He couldn’t seem to do anything right by Donna anymore. Who knew that learning the identity of a soulmate could make such a mess of a person?

“You can have a seat, Doctor. I’ll put the kettle on.”

He sat and watched the rain fall past the windows. Soon enough, Wilfred was seated across the table from him and two cups of steaming tea sat between them. It was so quintessentially British of him that he very nearly wanted to laugh.

Instead he asked, “Why were Donna and Sylvia fighting about me?”

“Donna didn’t tell you?”

He shook his head.

“Well, Sylvia found out about all this traveling Donna’s been doing, and I think she was just a bit scared. Who wouldn’t be after those Daleks came through?”

“True.”

“Anyway, she wanted Donna to give you up.”

The Doctor felt like a lead brick had just dropped into his stomach. “What did Donna say?”

“I’d think that was obvious,” said Wilf with a smile. It slowly dimmed when the Doctor didn’t return it. “Everything alright with you two?” He asked eventually.

The Doctor’s normal inclination was to lie or otherwise misdirect, but he supposed the other man would soon find out.

“Donna and I are soulmates.”

Wilf’s cup landed back on the saucer with a clatter. “Are you really?” At the Doctor’s nod, he gave a small whoop of joy. “Well, I did say — congratulations! Soulmates, and you and her from different planets and all. You must be the luckiest people in the universe to have found each other.”

He smiled, but he knew that even to Wilfred it had to look bitter. “Well, I don’t think she’s too happy about it, actually.”

“What?” Wilf seemed astonished at the very idea. “Why wouldn’t she be?”

“She found out the worst possible way, and now she’s got it in her head that I don’t care or I didn’t want her to know. But it’s not that at all! Truth is, Wilf, I’ve felt this way about your granddaughter for far longer than I knew she had my name.” He dragged a hand through his hair with a sigh. “I should’ve told her the minute I realized. There was just so much going on, and I wanted to have the proper time, but it all went wrong.”

He took a long gulp of the tea and sniffed once.

“Maybe she’d rather I wasn’t her soulmate at all.”

“Oh, that can’t be. You’ve no idea how happy she is traveling with you.”

The logical side of him knew Wilf was probably right. After all, hadn’t he only been convinced just the night before that Donna had wanted to kiss him, that she felt the same way he did? But all that had been when he’d thought they were just two people who had happened to develop those feelings for each other, not a pair of soulmates that had taken almost two years to get their act together. No wonder Donna was so disappointed in him.

“Soulmates have always meant a lot to Donna. You’ve got to understand, for the longest time none of us could make any sense of her mark. We thought there’d never be someone out there who matched with her. So she’s sort of built it up in her mind, how it would go if she did have a soulmate. Sort of a fantasy.”

“And I got it all wrong.” If Wilfred had been trying to make him feel better, he’d not done too well. He hadn’t realized he could feel even worse about this, but learning he’d ruined Donna’s childhood dreams did the trick.

Wilf was grinning again. “Well, it was always gonna go wrong. That’s life, isn’t it? But she’ll come round. It’s the person that matters, not the how or the where. Why, to hear Donna talk about you made me think you two had to be meant for something, anyway.”

The Doctor blinked. “Really?”

“Well, you needn’t take my word for it. You young people ought to have that out with each other.”

He very nearly stopped to correct the other man about just who the young people were around here — but Donna was more important. No more making her feel like an afterthought.

The Doctor stood. “Thanks for the tea.”

Wilfred waved him off with a, “Good luck!”

Somehow he had to set things right with Donna. Already Davros and his Reality bomb seemed like a minor nuisance in comparison to how important this was to him.

—-

Donna felt stupid for coming here. Not that that was much of a change from how she normally felt.

She knew she was being a real hypocrite accusing the Doctor of not prioritizing her and then dragging them off here instead of finally talking. But she was so scared of it, of what might happen to them.

Maybe it wasn’t because he was really in love with someone else, but there was still some reason the Doctor had chosen not to tell her he had her name on his back. She remembered what he’d said on the beach, that marks only meant what people let them. Did it simply not matter to him, or was it just Donna he didn’t want to be soulmates with? But then what had made him ask if  _ she _ didn’t want to be?

Since she’d chosen to avoid all that, though, she now had to confront what had happened just earlier in the day with her mother. Donna didn’t really think she had the energy, but she’d made the choice.

“Gramps said you wanted to talk. Apologize.”

“I do.”

There was another long, uncomfortable pause, but just when Donna opened her mouth, her mum broke it again.

“I’ve only wanted what’s best for you. And maybe I pushed too much to get you there. I didn’t know that’s how I’d made you feel. No, that’s not right,” her mother immediately corrected before she could even speak. “I knew. I just wanted to believe it’d be worth it, I suppose. That you’d get a proper job and a proper man, and  _ then _ you could be happy.” Her gaze landed somewhere on the carpet. “I just didn’t stop to think that wasn’t how you wanted to do things.”

“No,” Donna agreed quietly.

“You’re just going to keep traveling?”

“I think so.” Donna wasn’t really certain about anything anymore. The last thing she wanted to do was leave the TARDIS, but she didn’t think she could bear it if she knew he didn’t really want her around.

“With this Doctor,” her mum said.

“Yeah. He’s my soulmate,” she said, just to say it, really. She hadn’t gotten the chance to yet. Part of her still just couldn’t believe it.

“Oh?” Her mother’s eyebrows rose high on her forehead. “So, you were right after all.”

“Yeah. Well, so were you, really.”

Her mother frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, think about it, mum. I’ve known him how long and never even realized we were soulmates. What’s that say about us or our relationship?” She found herself pacing in the space between the sofa and the coffee table. “I mean, I told myself I didn’t even  _ want _ a soulmate once I’d got to traveling with him, and the whole time he’s just right there. I must look like the biggest idiot in the galaxy! It’s not supposed to go like that, you know? Like Martha and Mickey, all they had to do was hear each other’s names and  _ bam _ . Proper soulmates.”

Donna knew her mum had no idea who Martha and Mickey were, but she couldn’t really be bothered to care. She dropped onto the sofa with a heavy sigh.

“I always mess it up.”

There was no immediate answer. Donna closed her eyes, waiting for an agreement. That this was typical Donna, and of course the Doctor hadn’t told her he had her name because the idea they were soulmates was so laughable.

“You know, I never told you how your father and I met. How we knew we were soulmates,” said her mother instead.

“Right, cause you didn’t want to get my hopes up or whatever.”

Her mother snorted. “God no. It was just too embarrassing.”

Donna looked up. “What?”

Her mum sighed. “I was working in the canteen at university. About halfway through my shift a bunch of the boys came in, rowdy as you please. They’d been playing a pickup game of rugby. And one of them comes up to the counter and asks if we’ve got anymore serviettes because he’s got a bit of a nosebleed.” Her mum shook her head. “I said it was clean broken and bleeding all over the place, and who did he think he was — and that’s when he saw my name tag.”

“No,” said Donna, her mouth hanging open.

Her mother shook her head again, though she was smiling now. “It was your father. He looked  _ awful _ , and I wasn’t a very pretty sight either. Bits of food on my clothes, maybe my hair for all I knew, and he’s dripping blood on my counter and grinning like a loon.”

“You must have been so disappointed,” said Donna. It was hardly a fairytale, at any rate.

Her mum shrugged. “I suppose I was. I wanted to make something up to tell people instead of what had happened, but Geoffrey, he said it wouldn’t be us. After a while, it just didn’t seem to matter much.”

“But you still didn’t tell me,” Donna reminded.

Her mother sighed. “Well, I knew how much you cared about the whole thing. How special it seemed to you.”

Her gaze dropped to her shoes. She really had been obvious about that when she was young.

“I always wanted you to have everything right,” her mum continued. “Perfect. And despite my best efforts...you’ve managed it.”

Donna found herself even more thrown. “What?”

Her mum huffed once. “Well, you’re out there saving planets, doing more than the rest of us in just a few short years. It’s terrifying, Donna. And it’s — well, I’m prouder of you than I know how to say.” Just the smallest smile came to her face, and she added, “I can only imagine how proud your father would have been.”

“Oh, mum!” Donna was leaning across the sofa and hugging her before she knew it.

Neither of them spoke for a long time. “This Doctor,” her mother said eventually. “He...seems to make you happy. Happier than you’ve been here.”

“Yeah, he does,” Donna admitted.

“Well then it hardly matters how it happened, or how much of a fool  _ I _ think he is, does it?”

She felt herself smile, then shook her head and pulled back out of the embrace. “No.” Donna leaned back in and kissed her mum on the cheek. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done it. “Thanks.” Then she stood and left the sitting room; she had a soulmate to connect with. Properly this time.

Donna nearly went crashing right into him in the hall. 

“Oh! Sorry.” The Doctor had caught her with both hands on her waist, which he hastily removed.

“Where are you running off to in a hurry?” She asked, a bit teasing, hoping if he saw she’d calmed down that things wouldn’t be so awkward between them.

“You. To find you, I mean.”

He was practically tripping over himself, rubbing at the back of his neck and eyeing her nervously, and Donna could only think how awful she’d been to him about the whole thing.

“So was I.”

“Oh, brilliant. Everything sorted with your mum?”

“Yeah. Sorry for dragging you out here.” Donna hesitated, then asked, “Can we go home?”

“Home?” He echoed, clearly confused.

Donna took his arm and pulled him out the front door, right into the rain. “Yeah.”

He let her lead them at a run into the TARDIS and up the ramp. Donna let him go, put them in the Vortex as quickly as she could, and then spun back around to face him.

“Listen, I know I haven’t been all that great to be around. And it’s silly and stupid—”

“Donna, there’s no reason to apologize for how you feel.”

Well that brought her up short.

“Things didn’t happen the way you wanted, and you probably have questions about why it went the way it did.” The Doctor held his arms slightly away from his body. “I don’t want there to be any more confusion, and I don’t think you do either. Whatever you want to know, it’s yours.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me you had my name?” She finally let herself ask.

“Would you have wanted me to?”

Was he serious? “Of course I—”

“Donna, you were getting  _ married _ ,” he reminded her. “How would that have seemed to you, some alien you didn’t have any reason to trust claiming to be your soulmate? And then, well...you said you didn’t have a mark on the roof, and I just thought it best to say I didn’t either.”

Her eyes squeezed shut. It was all making a horrible amount of sense now that she thought about it from that angle. God, she probably would have run screaming if he’d led with that.

“And then once you’d lied you didn’t know how to stop,” she guessed. Hadn’t she been having the same problem?

When she looked at him again his brown eyes were big and guilt ridden. “I thought if you knew you’d think I only brought you along for your name, and then you’d leave.”

She didn’t know about leaving, but he was right on the money about the first part. She could just picture herself lying awake at night worrying about the other Donna, when he’d meet her, how much smarter and prettier she’d be.

“A right mess we made of it,” she sighed. “I don’t know what would be worse — just finding out now or knowing the whole time.”

“It was driving me near mad,” he admitted. “I thought I knew it wasn’t you, but it didn’t make sense. I don’t know how many times I tried turning it over in my head.”

Donna pressed her lips together and looked down. To think all the trouble she’d put him through these last few months. Any lingering hurt or anger she’d been holding onto for the way things had gone couldn’t withstand it.

“I was going to tell you.”

She felt her lips twitch in a smile. “Yeah, I know the whole Dalek thing sort of got in the way—”

“No, Donna, I mean I was going to tell you I had your name. Before I knew you had mine,” he added.

Donna stared.

“I had the whole thing planned out, see? Shan Shen, nice peaceful bit of the universe, market and nibbles.”

Her perfect date. Somehow he’d guessed at it with total accuracy.

“And the necklace,” he added. “I wanted to get you something, so you’d, ah, know it wasn’t just a normal outing.”

Donna hummed an acknowledgment. That had been rather hard to miss.

“Actually,” he said, beginning to rifle through his pockets. Eventually he produced the very one. “There we are.”

It shimmered in the light again as he held it out to her. Donna took it, but didn’t place it on.

“How much did you end up paying for it?”

He gave a dismissive wave of the hand. “It’s for you, and the point was that I was going to give it to you and explain the whole thing. That I knew you weren’t my soulmate, but that it was you I’d — well, I wasn’t interested in some other Donna or anyone by any other name.”

“But you couldn’t have known what I was gonna say,” she reasoned. “Weren’t you nervous?”

“Terrified,” he answered plainly. Then the Doctor slowly reached back out for the necklace. Donna placed it in his palm and held her breath as he went around behind her, lifted her hair and fastened it around her neck.

“But I’d decided that being with you was worth the risk. And to be with you, I had to tell you the truth.”

Donna slowly turned on the spot to look at him, feeling all kinds of overwhelmed. He’d really been willing to risk all that for her?

“I was gonna get mine removed,” she blurted.

He blinked and stepped back. “What?”

Well, if they were doing honesty hour. “My mark. I couldn’t read it, and no one else could, and I knew if you found out about it you’d want to investigate the bloody mystery. Then you’d find him on some planet out in the middle of nowhere—”

“Find who?”

“My soulmate,” she said, then rushed on with her explanation. “And then I’d be dumped off with him, and I didn’t want to meet my soulmate if it meant losing you, so my mark had to go. I set up something with the spa on Midnight, but then everything with the bus happened.”

He stood there a moment, seeming to need the time to process. “But...if I didn’t know about your mark, why did you think I was gonna look into it and find your hypothetical soulmate?”

Donna tried not to roll her eyes, she really did. “Because if we’d gotten together you’d have probably noticed it pretty quick.”

His eyes went wide. “Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh’.”

They looked at each other. Then the corner of Spaceman’s mouth ticked up, a snort left her, and they were gone laughing. One of her hands reached out to grasp his arm to keep herself from falling over, and the Doctor was bent double. There were possibly tears in his eyes.

“Oh, we really are a pair, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” she agreed, a bit breathless. “Yeah, we are.”

This was probably one of those moments they’d been having where they’d lock eyes, and they’d slowly calm down while gazing at the other, only for the phone to ring or the TARDIS to take off without warning.

Donna decided to skip all that. She grabbed the Doctor’s face between her hands and crushed her lips to his. It was less messy and chaotic than the detox kiss she’d given him — though still a bit wet from the rain — only because there were no walnuts or anchovies involved. But without those in the way she could feel his mouth start to move against hers in earnest. Her heart had already been pounding, but it only began to beat faster as his head tilted, and that somehow lined their lips up so much better. 

Donna staggered a half-step forward and felt his hands land back on her waist. They remained right where they were this time, much to her pleasure. She wished she could travel back to her own past, if only to scream at herself for waiting so bloody long for this. Maybe then she would have put the pieces together, for nothing had ever felt so right as this before.

“I want to see it,” she breathed against his lips.

“See what?”

“My name. Can I?”

A shiver went through him that she could feel, and that was a whole level of excitement she hadn’t yet let herself contemplate.

Of course, he had to stop kissing her to do as she’d asked, a side effect she’d somehow forgotten about. She watched somewhat impatiently as the Doctor removed his jacket and draped it over the railing, then loosened his tie, and finally undid the top couple buttons of his shirt.

He paused there a moment. “Blimey, can’t really remember the last time I showed someone. Martha, I suppose, but that was an accident.”

“Do I even want to know what all went on when Martha traveled with you?”

“It was entirely innocent!” He protested, turning his back to her.

“Yeah, I bet if I asked Martha, I’d get a different story,” she said, then stopped, for he’d tugged aside his shirt collar and the one he wore underneath to reveal the five letters that made up her name. Right there, plain as day. She found herself stepping forward, her arm lifting slowly.

Her name on someone’s back to match the one on hers. Donna couldn’t help tracing over the letters with a couple fingers, and Spaceman’s head lolled to the side under the light touch.

“It’s really real,” she said in a hushed voice. “I mean, I know it was before, but this just — I can’t believe it’s my name. Of all the people you’ve known, and it’s  _ me. _ ”

“Well, you’ll just have to believe it, Donna.” He turned back around to face her. “That mark has been with me for over nine-hundred years. It’s the one constant I’ve had, and it was just waiting for you.”

Spaceman was smiling at her, his eyes just liquid pools of warm brown, and she wanted to return it. But she couldn’t keep from saying, “Waiting for me to stop being so stupid about it, I suppose. We could’ve had this whole thing figured out ages ago if I knew Circular Gallifreyan.”

“Donna,” he groaned. The Doctor took her hands again and guided her to sit with him on the jumpseat. “Gallifreyan just isn’t taught anywhere else but Gallifrey. How were you supposed to translate it on your own?”

He was right, but she still couldn’t look at him. “I know, but—”

“I didn’t always understand what my mark said either,” he told her.

Donna blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I wasn’t born knowing your language. They were just some strange looking symbols to me. I didn’t know well into the Academy what it said. And then, well, I still didn’t have it quite right. A friend and I translated it as  _ lady _ .”

She looked round at him at last. “Did you really?”

One of his hands left hers to rub the back of his neck again. “Well, it is the literal translation, you have to understand.”

She started laughing. “What, so you just thought it meant some woman?”

He gave a half shrug. “It wasn’t until I started traveling and came to Earth that I realized it was an actual name. Must have been at least a couple centuries old by that point.”

A couple centuries! She wasn’t going to be able to breathe if he kept on. He started chuckling as well and it was a while before she could calm herself. Yet a sobering thought occurred to her.

“But I still don’t know what it says.”

“What says?”

“My mark.” She sat back to look at him properly. “I mean I doubt it’s just Gallifreyan for Doctor. I still don’t know your name.”

He grimaced. “Donna, I can’t tell you that.”

She moved away from him to the other end of the jump seat, crossing her arms over her chest. “And just why not?”

“Because it would mean we were married, and if I couldn’t introduce myself as your soulmate properly I’m at least going to marry you properly,” was his answer. He started tugging on his ear under her wide-eyed stare. “That is, you know, if you wanted marriage at some point in the indefinite future.”

It occurred to her dimly that there was a question in there she was probably meant to answer, but she was still hung up on what he’d first said.

“How is that a marriage? You say hi to someone, and you’re hitched? Your people were  _ bonkers _ .”

He gave an exasperated shake of the head. “There’s some other details, mostly to do with the families of each participant consenting and giving their children away, but the name is the foundational block, yes. My people didn’t necessarily hold much with soulmates, but names were still important. You didn’t tell just anybody — River!”

Donna jumped at the sudden outburst. “What?”

He sat straight up, eyes wide. “River Song, she knew my name. I didn’t know how because, well, she’s not you, but it must have  _ been _ you she was talking about!”

“Hold on, when did any of this happen?”

But the Doctor had stood up and was clearly lost on his own little train of thought. “‘Tell her I’m sorry’. She said that. I didn’t know what it meant, but she must have been talking about you. She gets the name off your back somehow. Still doesn’t explain how she knows Circular Gallifreyan, but it does mean I don’t marry her in the future.” He threw himself back onto the jump seat next to her. “That’s a relief.”

“Yeah, it’s a relief. You just promised to marry me, and I’m not into the whole sister wives scene!”

The arm he’d slowly been extending along the backrest towards her retracted. “Course not.”

Donna let out a breath. “Does that mean I mess up? If names are that important, should I not have been showing it to other people? I don’t think anyone else who saw it could read it,” she added quickly. God, she was such a screw-up.

“Donna, it’s okay,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do. When people meddle in their own personal timestreams — or the personal timestreams of others the way things happened at the Library, it creates fixed time. Since River told me my name and implied she got it from you, that’s just the way things have to happen.”

“Right. Timelines.”

He reached for her shoulders and waited for her to face him. “Whatever’s going to happen will happen, and it’s not your fault.”

“Okay,” she accepted softly.

The Doctor moved his hands to cup her cheeks, then brought his lips to hers. It was a more gentle kiss than their previous ones, a slow exploration. Donna’s eyes fluttered shut, and she leaned in, one of her hands landing on his thigh to balance herself. To think they could have been doing this for months, maybe years...

A sigh escaped her, and the Doctor pulled back to ask, “Something wrong?”

Donna shook her head. “No.” Then because she still wanted that closeness, she shifted and leaned into his side. Her Spaceman obligingly wrapped his arms around her, and Donna smiled.

“It’s just, everyone always said,” she couldn’t help continuing. “Finding your soulmate changes your whole world. And here we are just going along like normal.”

“With more kissing,” he observed. “That’s been a nice change.”

Donna turned her face into his chest to hide her grin for a moment. “Yeah, with more kissing. We were headed that way anyway, though.”

“Well, maybe that’s just it,” he said. She tilted her head back to look at him. “I was fairly decided that soulmates were complete nonsense and nothing but trouble when I met you. And I suspect you felt the same if you were marrying Lance.”

“Yeah.”

“So we wouldn’t have liked the idea of being together just because we’re soulmates. Why should we have? That’s not how it ought to be at all. We’re soulmates because we like — well, we... _ love _ — being together.”

The indirect admission made something warm bloom in her chest, and Donna pushed herself up to kiss him on the cheek. “Oh, you daft Spaceman. I love you, too.”

She snuggled back into his arms and pretended not to notice how he’d turned all pink at her words.

“Besides,” he added eventually, “my whole world changed the minute you appeared on my TARDIS.”

Donna pressed her lips together and hugged him just a little tighter. “Yeah. Suppose that should have been a clue.”

A yawn escaped her, and she blinked in some surprise. She’d completely forgotten how tired she was.

“Do you need to sleep?” The Doctor asked.

“Maybe, but I don’t want to get up just yet.” She was far too comfy, and besides she was too busy enjoying the new closeness she was allowed with her Spaceman. “Were the Daleks really today?”

“Yes. So was moving the planets. And Shan Shen,” he reminded her, and she could hear a smile in his voice.

“Shan Shen feels like two years ago. Suppose it was, what with the whole Time Beetle thing. Do those count for me? I spent about two years there and what felt like two years in the Library, give or take. Am I technically over forty?”

He didn’t answer for a long time. “You’re whatever age you want to be.”

“Oi.” She shifted her hold in order to prod him in the side. The Doctor squirmed, but couldn’t really do much to get away. “This is important to you, too. I made a bet with Nerys years ago that I’d get married before forty.”

“Right, I’ll mark the calendar as soon as I feel like moving,” he promised. His attempts to pull her in closer forced her to throw her legs over his lap, and her feet dangled in the air over the side of the jump seat. Probably wanted to keep her close enough to make poking at him too difficult, the sneaky man.

“Listen to you! Haven’t even proposed yet and you’re setting the wedding date.”

“I sort of proposed,” he argued. “I said I wanted to marry you, and you didn’t disagree.”

“If you’re marrying me properly that comes with a proper proposal,” she insisted.

“Fine, fine,” he groaned. “High maintenance, you are. What else was it you wanted?” He rubbed her back with one hand while he pretended to think. “Oh, right, a list of everyone who knew before you did.”

She felt her face heat up. “I think I liked it better when you thought I was angry.” It’d probably be more convincing were she not currently half-asleep on top of him and idly playing with the sunflower stone necklace he’d gotten her. It was just so pretty and smooth.

“I bet you did,” he said nevertheless. “Let’s see. Well, me, obviously.”

“Your friend with the rubbish translation,” she muttered.

He snorted. “Right, him. And my, uh, my first wife.”

“I thought that’s who you had, when Martha let slip you had a mark.”

She felt his head shake. “No. Time Lords really didn’t pay attention to marks. It was just seen as a leftover quirk of evolution. I’d have hardly noticed mine if it weren’t odd.”

“Watch whose name you’re calling odd,” she warned around another yawn.

“Everything’s relative, Donna. I really was quite good at not letting people know. It only got bad once you came on board.”

She frowned. “And how’s that?”

“Well, everyone just assumed I had your name. Martha saw it before, of course. Then there was Agatha — though I suppose she’s forgotten it again.”

“Can’t get anything past Agatha,” said Donna, rather sagely in her opinion.

“No, you can’t. River obviously knows — but does that really count as knowing before you do? She’s from the future.”

“Counts,” said Donna. Her eyes kept falling closed, and it was getting harder to blink them back open again.

“Alright. Josiah and some of the Puritans—”

That got her eyes back open. “You told the people trying to burn me at the stake?”

“I told you, they guessed! The only other people I really  _ told _ were Davros—”

“ _ Davros _ ?”

“It just sort of happened that way,” the Doctor repeated. He removed one hand to finish ticking off on his fingers, “Sarah Jane, Jack, Mickey, Jackie, and Rose.”

Donna felt his chest rise and fall with a sigh after the last name.

She let go of her necklace and laid her hand over his right heart. “She’ll be alright. There’s a whole universe out there for her, and she needed to know the truth so she’d go out there and take advantage of it. It wouldn’t have been right to leave her wondering.”

“I wish it had already happened for her. She shouldn’t have wasted ten years on me. All that time—”

“She’ll find her soulmate when it’s good for her, not to make you feel better,” she chided. “It’s not like she’s some old maid just yet. She’s young.”

“Everyone’s young compared to me.” He sounded so sad, and whatever comfort she was about to give died on her lips when he pressed his own to the top of her head.

Everyone. Including her.

She’d never tried to dwell on it much, not even when she poked fun at his age or resolved to travel with him the rest of her life. They didn’t have the same version of forever.

He’d thought that soulmates were complete nonsense and nothing but trouble. He hadn’t said it was because he’d been given a soulmate he couldn’t expect to last longer than a nice cat. What had the universe gone and done that to him for? She could’ve lived with a blank back if it meant he’d been paired up with someone better for him.

“Donna?”

She hadn’t realized she’d frozen up in his arms. For a moment, Donna floundered, having no idea what to say. Was she meant to say something about it or would that just make everything worse? There weren’t really any words that could fix it. All she had was herself, and she’d freely give that to him for as long as she could.

Donna pushed up off his chest, then kissed him before more than a surprised sound could escape his mouth. She tried to put all she felt into it, wanting to be worth the eventual pain.

He was the one to break it off, and it wasn’t until he brought his hands up to hold her face and wipe at the corners of her eyes that she realized it was because she’d started crying. “Donna? Donna, what’s wrong?”

God, she was a mess. “I should — I should turn in.” Donna got off his lap and hurried down the corridor to her room, swiping furiously at the remainder of her tears. She needed to be better than this. She had to stay strong, or what good of a soulmate was she? The last thing she wanted was to hurt him more than he would be.

Tomorrow she’d be better, Donna resolved. Her emotions were running too high and her nerves were frayed from all that had happened today. They’d nearly lost the whole bloody universe. A bit of rest, and she’d be ready to handle it.

Truthfully she didn’t know how she’d get to sleep with everything that was going through her head, but upon dropping onto her mattress Donna didn’t even register hitting the pillow before her exhaustion pulled her under.

—-

Well, now he’d done it.

The Doctor watched Donna leave and this time he couldn’t call her back or run after her because it really was his fault. Not a misunderstanding or an accident, just purely his own doing.

Why had he said it? He should have kept his own melancholy thoughts to himself. Donna shouldn’t have to be troubled with them.

He couldn’t blame her for not thinking of it before; it just wasn’t how she saw the world. Donna was always so in the moment, so ready to feel and experience whatever happened. Pain affected her more strongly than most anyone he’d known, while her happiness warmed even the coldest person.

The Doctor had had to learn how to distance himself from his pain, or he’d never be free of it. As a consequence, perhaps he didn’t know how to let himself be happy anymore either.

He leaned forward in the jump seat and placed his head in his hands.

There’d been no reason to ruin things. Yes, it was true that she was young — no matter what she said about forty — and like all humans would die so tragically young compared to him, but on some level he’d already accepted that the minute he’d decided to pursue a relationship with her. That was his burden, not hers, and he didn’t have to let it hang like a pall over their time together.

Already his arms felt empty and his body cold from the loss of her, even as the taste of her lingered on his lips from that last searing kiss. There was no question; he would rather have however long he was allowed with Donna than to not have it at all.

The Doctor knew at any rate that Donna would still be with him a while yet; he had River Song as a benchmark. They would meet her at least once again, and not only that but let her learn his name. But after that...

They would have to face it, and then simply set it aside until the time came. He refused to let this come between them, not after everything else had tried to. Donna deserved far better than a soulmate who could only think about once she’d gone.

He got up from the jump seat and left the console room, following the same route Donna had so recently taken. The TARDIS placed her room almost immediately in his path, and he touched the wall briefly in thanks. Then he reached out and knocked softly on the door. “Donna?”

There was no answer. The Doctor risked easing the door open and poking his head inside.

When his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, he found she’d collapsed on her bed fully dressed. She’d had such a hard day, and then some if he was being honest, which wasn’t even accounting for the time she’d spent in that parallel world.

He went to the foot of her bed and started undoing the laces on her shoes. Once removed, each was placed neatly on the floor. He undid the clasp on her necklace and laid that carefully on the bedside table. Her hoop earrings were next.

Donna was curled up on her side, so he slipped her left arm out of the sleeve of her jacket before gently turning her over to do the same with the right.

Only once he did so, he froze.

There was a faint glow showing through the back of her shirt, right where her mark was. Donna had said it had been glowing before, and he’d assumed it had stopped when her eyes did. With a guilty glance up at her face, he carefully peeled back her shirt from her mark.

Just a few of the arcs and curves in the circles that made up his name were glimmering now, like the last embers of a fire going out. Donna still held his regeneration energy within her. They’d determined it wasn’t fatal, but what was it  _ doing _ ?

Knowing he was probably heading for a good smack on the arm out of surprise if nothing else, the Doctor took out the sonic and activated it, scanning up and down the length of Donna’s body. She slept right through it, which certainly spoke to how tired she had to be.

His screwdriver had taken a reading, but he needed more sophisticated equipment to properly analyze it. The Doctor tucked the sonic away again before placing a kiss to her forehead and leaving the room.

In the medbay, he plugged the sonic screwdriver into some machinery to input the readings. It took some time to process, which he spent mostly by tapping his feet impatiently. Finally, one of the monitors beeped, and he rushed over to have a look.

Yes, it was regeneration energy she had absorbed, only it seemed to have fuzed entirely with her cell structure. 

“Hold on, if that’s right...” he said aloud. The Doctor took out his specs and leaned in for a closer look.

The rates of cellular replication and regeneration were off the charts for a human. But for a Time Lord? Practically equal. Not only that, but her cell aging seemed to have slowed dramatically.

Donna wasn’t aging like a human anymore.

“Oh.” He had to catch himself on the table for he’d gone a bit weak in the knees. The Doctor heard something wrenched from his throat that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a sob. “Oh, she’s brilliant. She — Donna.”

He had to tell her. She’d hardly believe it, but he needed her to know. The Doctor went sprinting from the medbay and down the corridor — only to slide to a stop and double back as the TARDIS had again moved Donna’s room right next door.

“Donna!” He didn’t bother with knocking this time, bursting back into the room as the ship brought the lights up all the way.

Donna gave a groggy half-groan, then yelled as he leapt onto the bed and pulled her up into a hug.

“Have you totally lost it?” She demanded, loud enough that he thought his ears might start ringing. The Doctor wasn’t all that concerned.

He pulled back to look at her with a grin that threatened to split his face. “No! Maybe! If I have, I don’t care!”

Having said that, he kissed her. Was it making up for lost time when their time now seemed to stretch out before him into the unknown? He didn’t care about that either. All he knew was he wanted to kiss her until his lips were numb, until he could no longer count how many times he’d done it.

Donna was a bit sluggish in responding, which he supposed was understandable, and when he broke off to let her breath she asked, “If you’re gonna pretend to be happy, can it wait till morning?”

“I don’t have to pretend,” he told her with a shake of the head. “And it can’t wait. Donna, we were wrong about the regeneration energy — it’s not harmful, but it  _ did _ affect you.”

“What do you mean? Hold on, how do you even know that? Did you bleep me?” It didn’t hold quite the usual bite considering she wasn’t quite awake yet.

“I maybe took a reading,” he admitted, then swiftly moved on. “But the energy has been assimilated by your body, and in doing so made changes on the cellular level.”

“Sorry, you’re  _ happy  _ about this?”

“Yes! Your rates of cellular regeneration and replication have increased and your cell aging’s gone the opposite way.”

“You know I hate it when you try to talk science first thing.” Donna was still rubbing sleep out of her eyes. “So, wait, what does that mean for you?”

“It’s not what it means for me, it’s what it means for us.” He took her hands and looked her right in the eye. “You’re not aging the way you used to. Barring any injury, your lifespan’s been extended far past the average human’s.”

He wasn’t sure if it was what he’d said or just her brain still waking back up that had her blinking at him in confusion. “So...I’m like the elves in  _ Lord of the Rings _ ?”

The Doctor felt one of his eyebrows raise. “When did you see  _ Lord of the Rings _ ?”

“Who says I saw it? Am I not allowed an interest in literature?”

The Doctor couldn’t help a dubious look.

Donna caved. “Viggo Mortensen is not bad to look at. You still haven’t answered my question.”

“Yes, a comparison could be made between you and the elves in  _ Lord of the Rings _ ,” the Doctor told her while making a mental note to avoid any possible run-ins with Viggo Mortensen for the foreseeable future.

“Am I gonna regenerate? That whole changing faces thing?”

He could tell the whole thing somewhat frightened her, and having a human’s sense of self he couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t as if he was overly fond of it whenever it happened to him.

“No. And I don’t think you’ll have the same immunity to weaponry or anything going forward. Time Lords usually have a grace period of about fifteen hours after regeneration where they can’t be harmed, and your fifteen is nearly up.”

“But I’m not going to get old,” she checked.

“Not for a long time,” he confirmed.

“Is it long enough, though? For me to stay with you,” she added before he could ask.

Of course that was what worried her most. He didn’t know how much more he could possibly love this woman, but he also suspected he was simply going to keep finding out.

“It should be. I only have one regeneration left. Which means...I will change. I can’t really do anything to stop that next time since the hand’s gone.”

When Donna let go of the two hands he did have, the Doctor’s eyes fell closed. But then she laid them on his chest.

“You’ve changed before,” she said quietly.

“Yes.”

“But you’re still the same person?”

“I know it’s strange, but my memories carry over between faces. Some of my preferences might be different — I might lose my taste for bananas, that sort of thing. But I’m still me,” he struggled to explain.

“And you said you’ve had my name all this time?”

He finally let himself look at her again. Donna was watching him, her eyes displaying curiosity, not fear.

“Yes. My whole life.”

She smiled then, just a small, gentle one. “Then that’s what matters to me. I won’t lie, the rest of it sounds weird — but weird’s normal with you. And if you’ve always been waiting for me, I’m not leaving you unless someone makes me, and they’ll have to put up a good fight.”

His hearts felt about ready to burst they were so full. “Donna,” was all he could manage.

She looped her arms around his neck and held him close, her cheek rubbing against his. The Doctor stroked her hair and tried to think of the right word for what he was feeling. Happy didn’t quite cover it; love was certainly a part; yet something unfamiliar to him eluded him.

He resorted to asking Donna, as he always did when he didn’t have the answer himself. “Do you know what I am right now?”

“Tired?” She guessed. “That’s about where I am.”

“Sorry. I just had to tell you.”

“No, I know, Spaceman,” she assured him, turning her face to brush her nose along his jawline and press her lips to the same spot a moment later.

“I know we have all the time in the universe now, but I could stay like this for a century,” he tried to explain.

“Can we settle for just the night?”

“Sure,” he agreed readily. Anything Donna wanted he felt bound to give her.

“Alright,” she said, then rather contradictorily let him go.

Donna pushed him without warning, and the Doctor’s back hit the mattress with an “Oof!” He hadn’t quite got his breath back when she sprawled half on top of him, her head resting on his chest.

“If you’re staying, you’re letting me sleep,” she mumbled.

The Doctor lay there a few moments staring up at the ceiling in sheer surprise as the TARDIS slowly dimmed the lights all the way to total darkness. Donna snuggled more firmly into his chest, one of her hands curling into a fist around his tie.

Then he wrapped his arms back around her. “I think I can do that.”

A quick peek showed the last of the glow to Donna’s mark was fading away, the regeneration energy fully settled. Much in the same way they were settled down for the night. There was no telling quite what awaited them tomorrow, or the next year, or even the next century; all he knew right now was that he didn’t have to face it alone. He had Donna, his best and soulmate.

Then it hit him. “Content.”

“Mm?”

“That’s what this is. More than happiness, not quite euphoria, just...enough. I’m content.”

“Good for you,” Donna said with a yawn. “Only took almost a millennia.”

He shifted to tuck her head under his chin. “It was worth the wait.”

Together and content, they drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am aware that some people have asked for the further adventures of Doctor/Donna as soulmates. I'm not entirely opposed to exploring some ideas in this verse in future, though there's nothing lined up at the moment. At any rate, you can keep an eye on my AO3 page or stay in touch via [my tumblr](https://raywritesthings.tumblr.com/). Once again, many thanks!


End file.
